Protection
by Sue Denham
Summary: You read the briefing file; you check the timetable that has been drawn up, and then you spend the appointed time in the charming company of a convicted killer." Set between 5.4 and 5.5
1. Chapter 1

_**Well it's the start of another fic. This one has been lurking around in my head since Easter! It's just taken a while to get it together. **_

_**It's set between 5.4 and 5.5. Basically so I get the chance to write for Ros and Ruth. I guess the next fic will be a series 8 one. **_

_**I've enjoyed writing this; I only hope that you enjoy reading it. As always, it's great to hear what you think.**_

* * *

Martin O'Dowd raised his head from the newspaper he'd been reading as he heard the familiar tread of heavy boots heading in the direction of his cell. He'd been in the prison long enough to be able to determine the difference between the sounds of the various officers. Whilst they all believed that they had a uniform measured step, O'Dowd knew different - he could tell the junior officers from the old hands and the corruptible from the straight. He dropped his attention back to the paper and waited to see if the footsteps would halt outside his door.

"Mr Russell," he turned the page of the newspaper casually as the key turned in the lock, and the door creaked open on its slowly rusting hinges. "To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

The tall bearded officer in the doorway frowned, but refused to question how O'Dowd had known it was him. He simply threw the empty plastic bin bag he was holding in O'Dowd's direction.

"Get your stuff together. You've got five minutes."

O'Dowd snatched at the bag and sprang to his feet, his eyes narrowing. "I know my rights," he snarled angrily. "You can't do this."

"We are all more than well aware of your knowledge concerning your rights," the sarcastic reply came back. "Now just get on with it."

O'Dowd shook his head as he moved to the dented grey metal locker that sat against the far wall. "I've not caused any trouble and you've got no reason to move me," he protested as he wrenched the door open with more force than was necessary.

"Well you can stay here if you want," Russell told him flatly. "Although after all this time I would have thought that you would be keen to get out of here."

O'Dowd paused and turned away from the meagre contents of his locker. "Out of here? Do you mean out of here as in out of here forever?"

Russell looked at him, a half-smile on his face. "If you don't pack your stuff up as I've told you to, you are never likely to know."

* * *

Jo Portman had never been a fan of the early morning meeting. It was one thing to gather in the meeting room at with a much needed mug of coffee and a croissant. It was something else entirely to be yelled at the moment you came through the doors, and barely be given enough time to put your bag on the floor before you were ushered into the meeting room.

As she took what she'd come to think of as her usual place at the table, she thought ruefully about the soaking wet umbrella that she'd been forced to abandon sitting on the top of her bag. If the meeting dragged on, as meetings on the grid had a tendency to do, then the breakfast she'd grabbed from the café on the corner was going to be soggy as well as cold.

The day had not started well. The weather was miserable. Rain had been falling since the early hours of the morning from the dark grey clouds that seemed to engulf the entire capital. The dreary weather had had its usual effect on the world-weary early morning commuters and Jo had had to fight her way onto the train; barging past a woman sporting an oversized golf umbrella. Quite why the woman thought that the crowded city streets were the place for a large umbrella was something that she'd been quite tempted to take issue with her about. A jab in the back from a fellow commuter had been enough to push her forward and make her forget about the annoyance.

She pushed the thoughts of her commute from her mind and crossed her feet at the ankles trying to ignore the uncomfortable feeling of wet feet. There were spare shoes beneath her desk, but Ros had decreed that there wasn't the time to waste whilst she changed.

Jo scowled inwardly. Ros, or course, looked the picture of perfection. Her hair wasn't dripping with rain water at the tips; and she knew, without looking, that her colleague's shoes would not show the tell tale white marks of rain damage. She shook her frustrations out of the way as Adam entered the room. The expression on his face was enough to make her realise that something was up.

"I want to know how this got out!" Adam dropped the newspaper down in the middle of the meeting room table and glared in turn at Ros, Zaf and Jo. "It's bad enough he's getting out, without having the press crawling all over the situation."

All eyes turned to the front cover of the tabloid. 'Maniac released' screamed the headline. The text was accompanied by a grainy indistinct picture of a man in the back seat of a car.

"Where did they dredge up this piece of creative writing from?" Ros asked drily, reaching forward and picking the paper up. "Who in their right mind thinks that the Government are ever going to release Martin O'Dowd?"

She scanned the first few lines of the article before raising her eyes and meeting Adam's gaze. "This **is **some kind of sick joke; isn't it?"

"I'm afraid not."

The conversation halted as the door to the meeting room was pushed open and Ruth bustled in, a sheaf of papers clutched in one hand.

Adam frowned at the intrusion before continuing. "The reports are correct as far as we can make out."

"What?" Ros's tone was incredulous. 'I thought O'Dowd was given back to back life sentences?"

"He was," Ruth replied; entering the conversation before Adam could get a word in. "O'Dowd's legal team have been battling it out with the European Court of Human Rights for the past ten years, seeking for a reduction in his sentence. The Court ruled yesterday that the heavy sentencing of O'Dowd was unlawful, and that he has served time that is in proportion to the charges he was convicted of. As a direct result of that he was released from Belmarsh in the early hours of this morning and transferred to Thamesmead Police Station, he'll be held there until such time as safe passage out of the country can be arranged for him."

Jo raised a hand before Ruth could plough on with her explanation. "I'm sorry....Martin O'Dowd?"

Ros rolled her eyes at the remark. "Where were you in 1987?"

"Miss Davies' class at Boxgrove Primary school!"

Ros scowled, whilst Ruth did her best to suppress a smile as she placed the papers she was carrying down on the table and picked up the remote.

"I searched these out this morning as soon as I was alerted to the news." She clicked the remote and a series of grainy stills appeared on the plasma screen. "In the early hours of Friday 13th of November 1987, a coded warning was received at Bishopsgate Police Station, indicating that an explosive device had been planted somewhere in the City. Despite promises that further calls would be made, detailing the location of the bomb, no more information was received and a device left in a lorry on Leadenhall Street duly detonated at 0830. Five people were killed in the explosion, with three more dying later in hospital from their injuries. Over forty others were admitted to hospital. The death toll would have been higher but for the fact that a second device planted only a short distance away failed to detonate." Ruth clicked on the remote again and a new series of images flashed upon the screen. The first was of a young man in his early twenties, his dark eyes glaring back at the camera with undisguised contempt. "Martin O'Dowd, a known associate of an IRA splinter group and long time subject of surveillance by this particular department, was soon implicated in the bombings. When found and questioned, he made no attempt to deny his actions, but claimed that he was acting alone and not under the orders of any paramilitary group. In the days that followed the bombing, no group came forward to claim responsibility and so it was accepted that O'Dowd, for whatever reason, was acting alone."

"Has he ever voiced remorse for his actions?" Jo wanted to know.

Ruth shook her head. "If he's said anything, then nothing has been reported. The trial that followed was swift. O'Dowd was recommended to serve a minimum of thirty years for his actions that day. Complaints from his defence council regarding the... somewhat over-zealous actions of the police meant that some evidence was deemed inadmissible, otherwise the recommendation might have been much higher."

"And he wasn't considered for release as part of the Good Friday Agreement because?" Ros questioned.

"Because he wasn't affiliated to any of the groups who signed the treaty in Belfast. Acting as a lone wolf, he was deemed to be outside of the parameters agreed upon for release," Ruth replied smoothly.

"So why all the fuss surrounding his release?" Zaf wanted to know. "Surely it would be in everyone's interest to get him out of the country with the minimum of fuss?"

"That was the plan," Adam confirmed, stepping back into the conversation. "We need to find out how the information was leaked to the press. If we have a wagging tongue in here, I want it stopped."

"The families of the victims were alerted to O'Dowd's impending release as a matter of course," Ruth continued. "No-one wanted them to wake up this morning and find out the news in the same way that the rest of the country did."

"So it's possible that one of them made the news known to the press?" Jo surmised.

Adam nodded. "It's certainly something we need to look into. There's a support group that has been running since the event, organised by some of the survivors. Whilst it's going to be impossible to put someone in there undercover...Jo, I'd like you to go and see Fraser Matthews who runs their website. Put some of your journalistic skills to good work. Ruth has the details."

"I asked Malcolm to check back at the activity of the website and hits have gone through the roof in the past twelve hours," Ruth interjected, selecting a folder and sliding it across the table towards Jo. "There have been no new members to the group in the last six months and the traffic on it was steady enough until last night. Then it went into meltdown and took the server out for an hour this morning."

"I trust we were able to find a way in?"

Ruth smiled at Adam's question. "Of course. Malcolm is at this very moment sifting through the chatter, trying to work out if there's anything we should interest ourselves in."

Zaf frowned. "Where's Harry this morning? With all this going on, I would have thought he'd be here."

"He was," Adam explained. "He was summoned to a Downing Street conference early this morning."

"Ouch," Zaf winced. "That's never good."

"Now I'm sure this is all very interesting," Ros cut in, her tone blunt, "But why the history lesson? What has any of this got to do with us?"

Before Ruth could answer, the door to the meeting room opened and all eyes turned to regard the new arrival. Harry's face was set in a neutral expression. He glanced at the others as he crossed the room and removed his coat, slinging it over the back of the chair next to Ruth.

"You're all here. Good," he began, cutting into the conversation without bothering to greet any of them. "That makes the next thing I have to say to you much easier." He stared round at each of them in turn. "There are times in our lives when we all have to do things we'd rather not; attend family functions, go to the dentist ..." Harry hunted around for a third example.

"...Sit through long boring meetings." Zaf suggested with a smile.

"Yes...Well this is another of those unpleasant tasks, but one that we are obliged to carry out with the minimum of fuss and with the utmost professionalism," Harry continued, taking his seat and not letting Zaf's interruption distract him. "I take it that you have all been making yourselves familiar with current events."

Ros glanced down at the headline on the front page of the paper and then up at Harry.

"Don't say what I think you're about to say."

"Such matters are not of my making, they are simply handed down the chain of command and we are duty bound to carry out the appointed task."

"You sound as though you're quoting," Zaf remarked, not having picked up on the look that passed between Ros and Harry.

"What's going on?" Jo voiced her own concerns, taking in the expressions on the faces of the people around her.

"The British Government in its infinite wisdom has decided that Martin O'Dowd has paid his debt to society and is now ready to be released into the welcoming arms of the world at large," Harry announced in dispassionate tones.

Ros let out a long breath. "And I'm guessing that people are even now queuing up around the block to kill him."

"Well it's our job to make sure that whilst he's in the country they don't get the chance."

Ruth shook her head. "They have got to be joking...there was enough chatter on the wires this morning to send the system into near meltdown."

"Now that the Great British Press has seen fit to inform the world that O'Dowd is about to walk amongst us, it falls upon our shoulders to ensure that no-one gets close to him. We are to maintain 24 hour close protection until such time as a passport can be conjured up and a country found that is willing to accept him."

"Close protection work is hardly within our remit," Ros protested. "Isn't that what we have the police for?"

"Seeing as they were the ones who put him away in the first place, it was thought that it would be politic to assign someone else to the task."

"And we drew the short straw," Adam added onto the end of Harry's comment. "When does this farce begin?"

Harry pulled a face. "Right now. Any plans you thought you had for the week ahead ... consider them cancelled. We will be working in pairs, with Malcolm co-ordinating operations from back here."

Harry raised his hand to silence the protests that immediately followed his announcement. "If any of you have any issues with what I've said, then I suggest you make your way directly to 10 Downing Street, as that is where the order originated. Take your problems up directly with the Prime Minister, as I am certainly not interested in hearing them."

"I had tickets," Zaf protested. "Good tickets...the sort of tickets you stay up all night to purchase." He looked pleadingly at Harry. "I don't suppose..."

Harry shook his head. "No that's right, you don't suppose. You read the briefing file, you check the timetable that has been drawn up and then you spend the appointed time in the charming company of a convicted killer." He looked round at the group. "I trust you all understand me? ... Good. Adam, Ros. Malcolm has organised a safe house and I want the two of you down there straight away, ready to receive our guest." Harry looked at the motionless figures. "This is not a subject that is open for debate. I suggest that you all get on with it. Ruth, I want to know exactly where these stories about O'Dowd came from and I also need a list of all those who are likely to be queuing up to kill him...see if you can't narrow the list down to a nice round hundred!"

Ruth opened her mouth to say something but thought better of it. She switched off the plasma screen as the others began to file out. Turning around, she was somewhat surprised to see Harry still standing there.

"You have something to add!" Coming from Harry it was a statement rather than a question, and Ruth coloured slightly.

"It's just ..." she looked around, trying to find the right words. "It's just a little unusual for something like this to come down to this department."

Harry regarded her for a few moments. "I couldn't agree with you more."

Ruth was about to apologise when she realised what Harry had said. She glanced around to make sure that no-one was within earshot before continuing. "Really!"

Despite himself, Harry smiled. "You should have a little more faith in your gut instinct."

"I thought you distrusted gut instinct?"

Harry chewed his lip. "Not when it comes to the sort of meeting I had this morning. This wasn't a hastily convened affair; not for the others there. I had the distinct impression that they were simply playing out parts they'd been rehearsing for weeks."

"Meaning?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know yet, but there's something about this whole affair that doesn't sit right."

"What do you want to do about it?"

"Tread carefully!" Harry pushed the door closed; ensuring that what he said couldn't be overheard. "The only other person at the meeting who seemed as surprised as I was by the announcement was Oliver Mace."

Ruth shivered involuntarily at the mention of the head of the JIC. Nothing that he'd done in the time she'd known him, had left her with anything other than an impression of him as an oily individual, whose only mission in life was to advance his own career; whatever the cost to those around him.

"And Oliver Mace being upset is something that bothers you?" Ruth couldn't help but ask the question.

The corners of Harry's mouth twitched. "When something comes as a surprise to the head of the JIC, then it's something I think we should be concerned about. Whoever it was who was involved in organising O'Dowd's release didn't think to consult him."

Ruth's eyes darted to the newspaper that was still sitting on the meeting room desk. "You mean that it looked as though the press found out about O'Dowd before Mace did?"

Harry arched an eyebrow. "It certainly looks that way. Now I'd call that interesting … wouldn't you?"

"What do you want me to do?" Ruth was there with the question; certain that Harry had some plan in mind.

"I want you to make some enquiries - as discretely as you can – see if you can't find out who's been pushing for O'Dowd's release. We've seen murderers released back onto our streets with less fanfare; I want to know who's been championing this particular cause."

"And if I find anything...I should ..." Ruth let the sentence drop away; wanting Harry to confirm her suspicions.

"If you hear anything then I want you to bring it to me... quietly. There's no point in bringing attention to this line of enquiry unnecessarily."

* * *

Oliver Mace cupped his hands together and blew on them; tying to banish the biting cold. He had never understood the propensity of certain officers to want to meet in parks. To his mind there was nothing to be gained from standing around in cold, windswept environments where anyone with a half-decent listening device could eavesdrop on a conversation from the warmth and comfort of their own car. He rubbed his hands together and then thrust them into his pockets. There were places he should be at this present moment in time; places where his absence would be noticed and questions raised. He glanced up at the clock on the wooden frontage of the old pavilion and sighed heavily. The local Neanderthals had been at work and the hands of the clock were now missing; the white facing of the timepiece smashed beyond repair.

"Oliver," a voice from behind greeted him, and he turned to see the man he had been waiting for. "I think you and I need to take a walk," the man continued, not breaking pace as he passed Mace; forcing the latter to rush to keep up with him.

"I had no idea that this was coming," Mace didn't bother with a greeting; knowing that the man he was with was more interested in finding out exactly what was going on.

"You should have known Oliver. With something like this goes down, you should be the first to know."

Mace pursed his lips. "There was no way for me to know. There was no file requested on O'Dowd; no word that there would be another representation to the courts."

The man clicked his tongue against his teeth. "This wasn't just the legal team getting lucky; they knew before they presented their case that it was going to succeed."

Mace halted and stared after the suited man. "You think someone helped him out?"

"Of course," the sneering reply came. "We just have to make sure that O'Dowd doesn't get the chance to open his big mouth. If you'd been on your toes then we could have arranged an unfortunate accident at the prison. Now; now we'll have to be a little more creative."

Mace took a moment to digest the information and then set off after the retreating figure. "He's with 5; there's nothing we can do."

The man smiled and turned to face Mace, taking in the look of panic on his colleague's face. "There's always something you can do Oliver. Surely if I taught you nothing else; I at least taught you that."


	2. Chapter 2

Adam paced across the room, glancing periodically at the clock on the wall as he waited for the arrival of O'Dowd.

"You'll wear a hole in the carpet," Ros told him flatly, without bothering to look up from the book she was reading.

Adam didn't break pace but gestured at the room they were in. "They think that this is a secure place to keep O'Dowd for a few days? Are they crazy?"

"Well I think we both know the answer to that one." Ros marked the corner of the page, before smartly closing the book and placing it down on the arm of the chair. With Adam's impatient presence in the room, there was very little chance of being able to concentrate further.

She looked casually around at the blandly decorated room they were sitting in. There was nothing anywhere that spoke of character. Everything was done with the minimum of detail; even the paintings on the wall were in neutral colours. It was an estate agent's idea of an ideal show home; nothing to jar the eyes of a potential buyer, but a room completely devoid of any sort of human touch.

"Well at least there's going to be nothing here to upset him," she remarked.

"But it's not exactly the most secure building in the country," Adam tried to push the point home.

Ros had to acknowledge that Adam had a point. "We'll just have to hope that the decoy transport attracts all the attention. Then no-one should be looking in our direction at all."

"Hmmm," Adam's non-committal reply told Ros all she needed to know about her colleague's view of the situation.

"The worst that happens is that someone does find him. I can't imagine I'll be shedding many tears over that."

"You might be if you're in the building at the time," Adam pointed out. "What's to say that they're going to be discriminate about finding targets? 'Collateral damage' is not something I want written on my gravestone."

"Anyone ever tell you you're a pessimist?"

"Coming from you that's almost funny."

Adam turned his head as he heard a knock on the front door.

"I'm guessing that that's not the neighbourhood welcoming committee with a gift basket." Ros rose gracefully from her seat and headed towards the door, one hand reaching for the handgun that was holstered at the small of her back. "If we happen to be in a neighbourhood of twitching curtains, then we're certainly going to give some homeowners a few things to gossip about."

"I wonder when they last had a siege in their street?" Adam grunted as he followed her out into the hallway.

Ros peered through the peep hole in the door and took in the sight of the three men on the doorstep. The man standing at the front of the small group was definitely O'Dowd. Despite the passage of time, he still bore a striking resemblance to his mug shots. His once dark hair was liberally flecked with grey but physically he was still in good shape. Ros stepped back from the door and began undoing the locks. From what she could tell, it didn't look as though prison life had been that tough on O'Dowd.

She opened the door and gave a cursory glance at the identity card that was thrust under her nose.

"Just get in here," she pulled the door open wider and ushered them in.

The escorting officer with the card sighed, "You're supposed to check that we are who we say we are, not just open the door and invite us in."

"And who else do you imagine I'd expect to find standing on the doorstep with him?" she jerked a finger in O'Dowd's direction.

Without waiting for a response she headed back down the narrow hallway towards the living room. The two plain-clothed officers exchanged glances before motioning for O'Dowd to follow her.

He grinned at the pair of them. "Nice to see that there's such a good relationship between all you types."

"Just get in," the reply came back. O'Dowd shrugged his shoulders before setting off down the hallway.

"If you could sign here," One of the plain-clothed officers handed the clipboard he was holding to Adam and indicated the space at the bottom of the form. "It just signifies that we've passed him into your care and that he arrived here in a healthy state."

Adam raised an eyebrow. "I hope you're not implying that you expect us to be the ones to do him harm?"

The officer smiled. "There's probably a list as long as your arm of people queuing up to kill him. We just needed some way of protecting ourselves from any blame when someone does finally manage to put a bullet in his brain."

"You don't trust us to look after him?" Ros's voice was icy, daring the man to argue to with her.

"Don't take it personally," the officer was quick to reassure her. "It's just that there are only two of you in here and an entire nation out there who want to see him dead. You've got to admit that the odds aren't really in your favour." He gestured towards his colleague. "We're only on this detail because we drew the short straw. Trust me; escorting O'Dowd across town wasn't the way we planned on spending the morning."

"I am here you know," O'Dowd growled from where he stood in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame of the door.

"Just sit there," Adam ordered, pointing towards the sofa.

"I am a person you know, not a piece of luggage."

"That's yet to be proved," Ros returned sarcastically, not bothering to turn her head to acknowledge him. "Now just do as you're told and sit down."

"Don't I get a hello then?" O'Dowd asked with a wry smile.

"Just sit down and shut up."

"When a man's inside he dreams of female company," O'Dowd told her as he threw himself onto the sofa. "I have to tell you that you are nothing like the dreams I had."

"I'm sure I'm relieved to hear it."

"The women I dreamt of were warm and giving....and had a pulse." He raised an eyebrow in her direction. "Tell me; is there anything beating beneath that frosty exterior?"

Ros pursed her lips and chose to ignore O'Dowd, turning her attention instead towards the two officers. "I take it that you weren't followed here?"

"No so we noticed," the first told her, trying to hide his amusement at the way O'Dowd was obviously winding the MI-5 officer up. "And trust me; being in O'Dowd's company is not going to be something I'll be boasting about in the pub."

"Yeah, well keep your eyes open on the way back," she told them sharply.

"Don't worry; if we see a van marked 'Mercenary for hire' we'll be sure to report it in!"

Sharing a grin at what they obviously thought was a good joke, the two men turned and headed back into the hallway.

Ros watched them go. "Why do they always have to send comedians?"

"You saying the Police are a joke?" O'Dowd looked up lazily from his place on the sofa. "Well now, I could have told you that."

Ignoring him, Ros headed off after the two officers, checking that the front door was secure after their exit.

O'Dowd turned his attention to Adam. "I see that you two are going to be a barrel of laughs. What do they do – surgically remove your personalities that day that you sign up?"

"The rules are straightforward," Adam told him flatly, refusing to rise to the bait. "You do as you're told and we'll do our best to see that you come out of this alive."

"So what, it's just you and the ice maiden looking after my well-being?"

"It's more than you deserve."

"Well you'd better be up to the job."

"I can't imagine you'll get to complain if we're not," Adam remarked as he headed across the room towards the kitchen. "You might want to keep away from the windows. I've seen the spray pattern from a shot to the head … This place has only just been redecorated and I doubt there's enough in the budget to have it done again soon!"

He allowed himself a small smile at the silence that met his comment. There obviously was a way of keeping the man quiet after all.

* * *

Ruth lifted her fingers from the keyboard and slowly flexed them. The task that Harry had set her wasn't impossible, but it was certainly proving to be something of a challenge to compile the list that he required in such a short space of time. At the back of her mind his comments concerning Oliver Mace were replaying themselves. For Mace not to know something was suspicious. There had to be someone high up in the food chain pulling the strings if they had managed to keep O'Dowd's release from him. That was something she had to bear in mind whilst she was searching through the files.

Reminding herself that the list wouldn't compile itself, she forced her fingers back onto the keys and they once again began their graceful dance.

Moments later she became aware of a presence at her shoulder. She was fairly certain that she knew who it was, and she hoped that Jo wouldn't think her rude if she didn't look up and acknowledge her colleague.

"I've got a question."

Ruth's fingers halted their rapid movement across the keyboard. There was a brief pause and then she turned to regard Jo. "What is it?"

Jo looked at the files that were stacking up on Ruth's desk, and the document that was building on the screen. She held up her hands by way of apology. "It's nothing," she insisted, realising that it wasn't perhaps the best time to be bothering Ruth. "I'll ... I'll go and ask Malcolm."

Ruth rubbed at her tired eyes and smiled. "I could do with the screen break anyway. They're always going on about how important they're supposed to be" She sat back in her seat and regarded Jo for a moment. "I'm guessing you want to know about O'Dowd?"

Jo nodded and took a seat on the edge of Ruth's desk.

"I get the feeling that I'm about the only one in the office who's not up to speed on this. I now know how Harry feels when we talk about what he calls 'unpopular music'!"

Ruth's smile grew. "What do you need to know?"

"Why the hatred?" Jo paused and rethought her question. "I mean, I know he was a bomb-maker, but why all the public hatred for him to this day?"

"If you're going to see Fraser Matthews then I suggest you do a little reading first," Ruth advised, her tone changing immediately. "On the morning of the 13th there was a defective train reported at Tower Hill at around 0815. The Circle Line clockwise ground to a halt and passengers were advised to take to the streets to continue their journeys. When the bomb exploded fifteen minutes later, a party of boys from The City of London School were just making their way along the top of Leadenhall Street..." she tailed off and watched as her colleague's expression turned to one of horror.

"How many were hurt?"

"Three were killed outright and five others were injured, two of them seriously. The media came down on him. I'm guessing you can imagine what the red tops made of it?"

"Hence the maniac tag?' Jo guessed.

Ruth nodded as she sifted through some of the files on her desk. "There's a file here with some of the copy from the articles. Also bear in mind that it was less than a week since the Remembrance Day bombing in Enniskillen. Tempers were running high. Feeling towards O'Dowd just grew."

Jo nodded as she took the file from Ruth. "Most of it fuelled, no doubt, by the great British press! Catching and jailing O'Dowd must have eased the pressure on the government somewhat."

When Ruth didn't reply Jo raised her head and looked to see what had attracted her colleague's attention.

The flatscreen monitor in the corner of the room was tuned to a news channel. The images on the screen were soft; the colours slightly muted. Judging from the quality, it was a news report from the channel's archive. Jo realised what the story was as Ruth's voice broke the silence.

"Malcolm, how long have they been running that item?"

Malcolm raised his head from his own work at the sound of Ruth's voice, and shot a cursory glance at the screen. "It's their main story; I've seen that report at least three times in the past hour. I mean, I don't know why they call it a news channel when all they seem to do is repeat the same things over and over again...It hardly qualifies as 'new' does it!"

Jo watched as Ruth pushed her chair away from her desk and made her way towards Harry's office, obviously no longer listening to Malcolm and her conversation with her completely forgotten.

"Was it something I said?" Malcolm asked with mock hurt as he watched the door to Harry's office open and Ruth bustle in without waiting for an invitation.

Jo shrugged her shoulders, and watched with barely disguised amusement the way that Ruth appeared to be interrogating Harry. There was no way that anyone else in the office would get away with such behaviour. If she tried it, she knew that she'd be demoted to some boring desk job within minutes, and probably rotated right out of the building at the next office reshuffle.

"You think there's something going on there?" She asked the question without thinking.

Malcolm followed Jo's gaze to the office.

"I think there's an ex-bomb maker sitting in a safe house that we ought to be concentrating our attentions on," he replied diplomatically, trying to ignore the pang of guilt he felt over his own heavy footsteps into territory that hadn't been his to walk in. He hated to think that his well-intentioned words to Ruth had been the cause of the awkwardness that had recently appeared in her relationship with Harry.

"Are you ok?"

He turned his head and caught Jo's concerned expression. "It's nothing," he assured her, trying to deflect her attention away from her chosen subject. "Just something on O'Dowd that I think Harry will want to hear about."

"You may have to wait your turn," she noted as she headed away from Ruth's desk and back towards her own.

Malcolm sat and, from a safe distance, watched the animated conversation that was taking place.

* * *

"It's indefensible," Ruth tried to push her point home. "I don't understand how you can sit there and not at least try and do something about it."

Harry sat back in his chair and watched patiently as Ruth paced back and forth across the small space in front of his desk; her temper appearing to grow with each step. She had barged into his office in the without bothering to knock - a habit that, despite himself, he had become accustomed to since her arrival from GCHQ – and had proceeded to launch into a very articulated rant against rolling news and the way that news channels distorted the importance of events that were happening in the world.

"Ruth..." Harry tried once again to make himself heard, but Ruth was on a roll and not about to be stopped.

"...There is no way that that ... that ... man should dominate the headlines..." she tailed off as she realised that Harry had spoken.

"Whilst I agree with you, it's not as though I can slap a D Notice on the situation Ruth. It's news; it's in the public domain and as such the press are free to report on it in any way that they see fit."

Ruth shook her head and tried to order her thoughts.

"I read the early reports on the wires and I'm sure that you did too. There are more important things happening out there in the world right now than the release of some terrorist."

"Former terrorist," Harry corrected. Realising as he spoke that it was the wrong choice of words.

"The passage of time doesn't change what he did. There should be some injunction that we can put in place; something to stop the news plastering his picture all over the TV. It's like he's some kind of celebrity."

Harry kept his eyes on Ruth's angry expression. "What have you found out about O'Dowd's release?"

He knew that the sudden topic shift would throw her off balance; he also knew that she wouldn't be able to resist sharing the information that she had gleaned.

He managed to suppress a smile as she launched immediately into facts that she had managed to gather.

"Looks as though O'Dowd had his own Lord Longford waiting in the wings. O'Dowd's legal team made several attempts in the last few years to get the sentence reduced. Each time the appeal was refused." Ruth pulled a face. "To say that the appeals were weak is understating it somewhat. If I'd been one of the appeal judges and read the material that was put forward, I would have increased O'Dowd's time not reduced it."

"So what changed this time?" Harry tried to urge Ruth to get to the point.

Ruth took a seat and folded her hands in her lap. "It was a completely different approach; a completely different plan of attack."

"Well surely you'd expect that?" Harry didn't follow where Ruth's explanation was going.

Ruth shook her head. "O'Dowd never had the greatest defence team in the world. At the time of his trial, no-one wanted the case. Not even ..."

"Ruth..." Harry intimated that she should get to the point.

She smiled apologetically. "Sorry...Every attempt that O'Dowd has made for early release has been with the same protest; that he has served his time and deserves to be let out on the streets." Ruth leant forward and tapped a finger on the table. "This time they took a completely different approach; looking at the way that the police carried out the investigation and the way that O'Dowd had been subjected to what they deemed to be a 'Trial by media' - citing the heavy press coverage and claiming that it prejudiced the case against him."

"That's some switch."

"Exactly; something I don't think that O'Dowd's team would have thought of in a lifetime."

Harry steepled his fingers and leant forward in his seat. "So the question remains; who's pulling the strings?"

"And why are they so keen to see O'Dowd out on the streets? They must have known of the media circus the event would throw up; and the likely reaction of the press and the public."

Harry thought on the matter. "Maybe they were hoping to get him out of the country before the press got wind of it?"

"From the sound of it they got the case past the Home Secretary without too much problem."

Harry pulled a face. "There's someone I need to have a meeting with," he acknowledged. "A few well-chosen words in his shell-like about the release of sensitive prisoners and communication with us."

"I'm sure you'll be charming," Ruth assured him. "Polite; yet firm."

Harry glowered at Ruth. He was about to say something when he heard a tap on the door. Malcolm was standing on the threshold; looking as though he was about to burst.

"See what more you can find out," Harry called out to Ruth as she took her leave, before beckoning Malcolm in "What have you got for me?"

Malcolm made his way across the office. "You're never going to believe this one," he began as he placed a printout down upon the desk. "I was looking into O'Dowd's bank account and wondering why he was suddenly flush with money...as far as I was aware, working in the prison kitchens did not your fortune make."

"And?" Harry prompted Malcolm to get to the point.

"And I found the name Waterhouse Publishing among the people making payments to his account."

Harry frowned. "And they are?"

"Last year they published what can only be described as a lurid account of the activities of self-confessed mercenary Frank Blundell. If you're looking for a book to appeal to the lowest common denominator in society, then you've found it."

"O'Dowd's planning a book?"

Malcolm spread his arms wide. "It makes sense; some glorified expose of his time working as a bomb-maker; I can't see why Waterhouse would be paying him money otherwise."

Harry shook his head. "I don't believe this. I want it looked into further. There is no way that anyone should be paying money to O'Dowd for his story."

"And it's not as though the Government would ever sanction its publication in this country."

"We all know that someone will pick it up." Harry pulled a face. "We need someone to go and have a word in the shell-like of Waterhouse Publishing; see if they can't persuade them that publishing will indeed lead to them being damned." He drummed his fingers on the desk. "Who's the commissioning editor?"

"The ever-loquacious Simon Burrows."

Harry let out a snort of derision. "Burrows! How the self-proclaimed mighty have fallen. All things considered I think Ros is our best match for Mr Burrows."

"She's with O'Dowd," Malcolm reminded him.

"Well I'm sure she won't object to the change in scenery." Harry returned his attention to his work, raising his head a few moments later when he realised that Malcolm was still there. "Was there something else?"

Malcolm pulled a face. "I've drawn up a rota for the safe house…"

"Well then you'll have to change it."

Malcolm glanced back out into the office, his heart sinking as he realised that there was only one viable option left for babysitting duties. He turned back, hoping to persuade Harry that perhaps the meeting with Burrows could be delayed, but Harry's attention was already firmly fixed on the files in front of him... making it clear that as far as he was concerned, the matter was now closed. Taking a deep breath Malcolm turned on his heel and left the office. The next conversation wasn't one that he was going to enjoy.

Ten minutes later, Harry raised his head from the file he had been trying to read. Ruth was standing in the doorway to his office. She'd been there for a good minute, not saying anything but he could hear her unspoken words, demanding to know if she really had to have anything to do with the surveillance operation.

"I'm sorry Ruth, but there's no other way around it," he apologised.

"I could just report sick and go home."

"And spend the rest of the weekend looking for a new job?" Harry finished for her. "Look I understand why you don't want to spend any time in the man's company. Believe me, he's not exactly top of my list of people I want to spend an afternoon with either, but we have been tasked to look after him and look after him we will."

"I'm not technically a field officer," Ruth argued, searching for a way out of the assignment.

"And you're also not 'technically' entitled to any of the kit that you have walked out of here with over the past three years," Harry countered. "But I've yet to write up any of those little indiscretions on your personnel file."

Ruth folded her arms. "That's blackmail!"

"True," Harry admitted.

Ruth let out a heavy sigh. "He's a murderer Harry."

"One who's served his time and is now entitled to be allowed back into society."

Ruth shook her head. "You don't believe that, surely?" She regarded him for a few moments. "I refuse to believe that you agree with that...not after what he did. Not after what we just talked about."

"Whatever he did is in the past Ruth, and is none of our concern. We can't allow personal feelings to get in the way of us doing our job."

"Oh no," Ruth agreed as she turned on her heel and left the doorway. "Because we all know, that in no way is the heart attached to the rest of the body."

Harry watched her go and then picked up the phone.

"Adam, tell Ros to get her things together, Ruth will be there within the hour."


	3. Chapter 3

The cold air gusted around Jo as she exited Tower Hill station; small whirls of leaves and rubbish whipping around her feet as she turned onto Vine Street. She pulled up the collar of her coat and glanced around, trying to get her bearings. Ruth's words from earlier came to her mind and she tried to suppress a shiver as she thought of the group of children all those years ago taking the very same route as she now was.

She made her way down the narrower back streets, dodging suited individuals and cycle couriers as they made their way between the various offices that dominated the area. Finally she came out onto Leadenhall Street and headed left towards the building where Fraser Matthews; the organiser of the survivors group, had requested they meet.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the glare, and squinted up at the building in front of her. The rain had finally let up and bright sunlight was now forcing its way through a gap in the clouds; reflecting back off of the building in front of her.

Reaching up towards the sky, the structure looked as though it had been built inside out. Metal pipe work snaked across the highly polished surfaces and the external glass lifts gracefully rose and fell like something out of a Roald Dahl novel.

"Impressive, isn't it?" came a voice at her shoulder.

Startled, she turned and found herself facing a tall man in his mid-forties. She recognised him from the photos that Malcolm had provided and extended a hand in greeting.

"Jo Greening," she introduced herself smoothly. "I'm sorry for bothering you at work Mr Matthews. It's just that my editor wants to be sure that we get the details right." She flashed him a wide smile. "Thanks for taking the time to see me."

Matthews returned the handshake and waved away the thanks. "I'm just pleased that people are still bothered about the details. It always seems to me that the small details are the first casualties of any news story. And please, call me Fraser."

"I realise that this must all come as something of a shock to you," Jo opened the conversation, deciding that the best course of action was to get straight to the point. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but when did you hear about O'Dowd's impending release?"

Matthews frowned. "I received a phone call at 3am. It woke the whole house." He paused and after a moment added. "It seems that even now that man has the ability to dictate my life."

"I'm sorry?"

Matthews waved the comment away. "It's nothing. It just feels as though the only time that you people want to talk about the bombing is when you want to discuss O'Dowd. No-one's ever on the phone when it's Christmas, or a birthday we have to get through without our loved ones. It's always when it's O'Dowd applying to the Court of Human Rights, or appealing for remission. He still dominates the event more than the death of so many innocents."

Jo bowed her head, wishing she could find some way to make things better.

Matthew's looked over and caught the expression on her face.

"I'm sorry. You didn't come here to listen all this." He gestured towards the benches that nestled in the shaded square of land across from the Lloyd's building. "Please, let's take a seat."

The pair walked in silence, avoiding the puddles of water in the uneven pavement, until they reached one of the empty benches.

"I suppose there's one benefit about meeting at this time of day," Matthews attempted to break the silence that had fallen between them. "I usually come out here and the place is full of tourists. Can't get a seat on a bench for love nor money."

Jo smiled and glanced around at the tourists who were just beginning to make their way into the area, cameras at the ready, all wanting to capture a picture of the architecture that now defined the area. "This place certainly has a lot to attract people."

Matthews frowned and looked at the buildings that surrounded them on all sides. "And yet how many of them realise that the Gherkin's only standing because the Baltic Exchange was bombed beyond repair? It's amazing how quick people are to forget." He shook his head; taking in the look of confusion on Jo's face. "Sorry, you'll have to excuse me." He shot her a smile. "What is it about O'Dowd that you want to talk about...it is him you want to talk about?"

"In a way," Jo admitted, noting the way that Matthews was quick to bury his emotions. "The headlines this morning were all concerned with his release. I assume that I'm not the first to contact you?"

Matthews rubbed his eyes. "The phone hasn't stopped ringing. Your colleagues, on the whole, seem to think that I should be planning my revenge."

"And are you?" Jo pushed quietly for an answer.

Matthews looked away into the distance. "If revenge in some way could bring back life..." he shrugged his shoulders. "...then maybe violence would be an answer." He turned to face Jo. "It's not an easy emotion to explain. Have you ever lost anyone... in an accident, or through illness?"

Jo nodded; an image of Colin flashing into her mind. "Yes, unfortunately I have. A colleague...quite recently."

"Well then you'll know that empty feeling?" Matthews told her. "I'll tell you something for nothing... It doesn't go away, not really. It's always there; not always on the surface, but there all the same...waiting to hit you when you least expect it. It's not a feeling that you can get rid of by lashing out at someone else. That won't lessen the feeling of loss. The only thing you can do is try and make peace with yourself."

"And do you think that you've managed that?"

Matthews smile was thin. "That's what the group I set up is about... We support each other... I hate to disappoint you but we haven't spent the last twenty years planning how we're going to kill O'Dowd."

"I, for one, am pleased to hear it."

He regarded her carefully. "You don't seem as eager to dig for dirt as some of your colleagues."

"Maybe that's why I'm the one doing the follow up stories and not getting the front page by-lines," she told him ruefully. "Do you think that anyone in your group is still angry enough to try and kill O'Dowd?"

Matthews thought about it for a few seconds and then shook his head. "I'd like to think that we've all moved on from that now. He'll never be forgiven, but I think we all realise that killing him wouldn't solve anything." He paused again. "You're not looking to try and paint us as screaming vigilantes are you?"

"No, no," Jo was quick to apologise. "You just got me thinking though; about how hard it must be to put something like that behind you."

"Psychiatrists talk about how you have to make peace with yourself... and I guess that there is something in that. You can never bring someone back; you have to learn to accept that they are gone."

Jo wanted to say something to him, but the moment was lost as a group of tourists approached them, cameras offered out - searching for the right words in an unfamiliar language.

Matthews rose to his feet and declined their request as politely as he could before extending a hand in Jo's direction.

"If I could get through the rest of my life without hearing his name again it would be something." He shrugged his shoulders. "But that's never going to happen. If someone does decide to kill him, then the whole damn circus is just going to start up again." His hand dropped from hers and he glanced at the time on his watch. "I've really got to get back. I hope you find your own closure."

She smiled and thanked him, before watching him turn and head off back towards the tall building in front of her. He cut a very isolated figure amongst the groups that were starting to gather in the square, and she felt a pang of regret that there was nothing she could do to help him.

She made her own excuses to the tourists and headed away from the square, oblivious to the blossom that fell like confetti from the trees around her.

* * *

O'Dowd dragged his attention away from the television as he heard the front door opening. As far as he had been aware, the two officers he was with were going to provide his security. A third person had not been on the agenda. The voice, what little he heard of it in the snatched conversation that took place in the hallway, was female. He leant towards the arm of the chair and waited for the new arrival to enter the room.

Moments later, the door was pushed open and a woman entered the living room, flashing a quick smile in the direction of the other officer.

O'Dowd immediately appraised the new arrival. There was a definite difference here; he could sense it straight away. She didn't have the same self-assurance and hard-edged confidence of the two officers he'd met so far. It also appeared as though she had no great desire to be in the house. Her gaze around the room had very definitely passed over him without halting. He'd seen the look plenty of times down the years. She had already made her mind up about him, and he had the feeling that she'd rather be anywhere else at the present moment in time than in a room with him. He smiled inwardly; perhaps there was sport to be had. There was always someway of alleviating the boredom, and over the years he'd discovered his own skill of getting under the skin of people. He smiled inwardly. There was always sport to be had when you knew where to look.

"Ros seemed in something of a hurry," Ruth said by way of a greeting to Adam and gestured back towards the front door, where only moments earlier Ros had barged past her with barely an acknowledgement.

"Mmm," Adam nodded. "There are a few things that need sorting. Thanks for stepping in."

Ruth shrugged her shoulders. "I wasn't given a choice," she told him honestly as she cast her eyes around at her surroundings again, taking care to try and avoid the area of the room where O'Dowd was sitting.

"It's nice to know I'm so loved," she heard O'Dowd call out in reply to her comment. "I don't bite you know."

Ruth pointedly ignored him and made her way over to the table on the far side of the room. "Is Ros likely to be long?" She hoped that she managed to keep the edge out of her voice. It wasn't as though she had any plans of her own for the rest of the day; it was just that she'd only been in the room with O'Dowd for a matter of moments and he was already giving her the creeps.

Adam shook his head. "She shouldn't be more than a couple of hours."

"What is it?" O'Dowd's voice floated across the room towards her. "You got a hot date this evening."

Ruth pursed her lips and did her best to ignore O'Dowd.

"How's it been?"

"Well no-one's stood in the street demanding that we bring him out," Adam told her with a smile. "So I think our cover's fairly safe."

"Jo arranged her meeting," Ruth glanced at her watch. "She should be there now actually. You really think that this man will have anything useful to say?"

Adam shrugged and glanced out of the window at the empty street beyond. "Never does any harm to check out the obvious places...there's always a chance that someone's made contact with the group recently."

"Malcolm's checking the IP addresses of everyone who's visited the site in the last few days. He may come up with something." She was aware that she was making conversation simply to keep from having to deal directly with O'Dowd's presence. It wasn't perhaps the most professional thing to do, but in the circumstances she thought it was better than letting the man know what she really thought of him.

"Take a seat," Adam advised her. "It's going to be a long and very dull day."

* * *

Harry chewed his lip thoughtfully as he scrolled through the list of names that Ruth had managed to compile for him. He wondered idly just how many names she had discarded to get the list down to the exact number he had specified. He failed to suppress a smile as he noted the way that she had attached symbols to various names in the list and added a little key for them at the bottom... just in case. He shook his head, failing to understand how she could produce something so seemingly complete in such a short space of time.

As always, she'd been thorough. Names of past cell mates were listed alongside known activists and those who'd been active at the time of the bombing. He sped through the list again. Time was of the essence. It would be impossible to cover everybody. He went straight to the top of the list. If Ruth rated them as a risk, then that was good enough for him.

He felt a slight pang of guilt at the thought of sending Ruth to the safe house, but there had been no way to avoid it. He needed someone who could exert a little pressure if needed upon the publisher Burrows, and Ruth just wasn't that person. Ros, he felt sure, could paint a very clear picture to Burrows, detailing exactly what would happen if he were to persist with his notion of publishing a book written by O'Dowd.

He was roused from his thoughts as Jo entered his office and settled herself onto a chair without waiting for an invitation

"You can cross Fraser Matthews off the list," she told him as she stretched out. "He's not our man."

Harry glanced up, failing to keep the expression of annoyance from his face. "It is customary to knock before entering the office of a superior," he reminded her.

Jo nodded back to the main office. "Malcolm told me that you wanted to see me the moment I got back."

Harry frowned. "I may well have said that," he began, and then realised that it was pointless trying to carry on. "So how was Mr Matthews?"

Jo considered her answer for a moment. "I don't think he's someone who's looking for revenge."

"Neither does Ruth," Harry replied, handing her a copy of the list of names. "Matthews didn't make her final cut."

"So my meeting with him was a waste of time?"

"Not at all. It was possible that he was harbouring thoughts of the dark variety, or that he'd been receiving emails from sources unknown...I take it that no screaming vigilante clamouring for revenge has been beating a path to his door?"

Jo shook her head. "Not that he mentioned." She paused. "He does seem a very melancholy man. I don't think he's ever really come to terms with his loss."

"Few people ever do," Harry told her quietly. "Now don't forget to get some rest. I don't want to be responsible for you nodding off in the middle of your shift."

Jo pulled a face. "I noticed how Zaf and I managed to pull the nightshift."

Harry shot her a wry smile. "Rank does have its privileges."

"Which is why you're sat here whilst ..."

"... I was up at the crack of dawn being ferried to Downing Street to have the Prime Minister drop this particular bundle of joy into our laps," Harry cut smartly across Jo's complaint. He arched an eyebrow. "If you want to compare hard luck stories I can tell you now who'll win."

"Who alerted the press to O'Dowd's release?" Jo asked, changing the subject as she rose to her feet, preparing to leave the office. "Matthews said that the journalists were on the phone from the early hours of the morning. Almost as though they already knew what was coming."

"That point has already been raised with me today," Harry admitted. "It looks as though someone has been out to make certain that O'Dowd's entry back into society doesn't pass without notice. I'm hoping that Ros will help solve the little mystery behind this one."

"Who on earth would champion someone like O'Dowd?"

"Someone who doesn't care where the money comes from, as long as it comes," Harry replied smoothly as he pushed his own chair away from the desk. "I have a house call to make. I trust I can leave that particular puzzle in your capable hands. Get onto any contacts you may have. Make the most of the press pass that Malcolm fixed up for you. See if you can't persuade a few hacks to do a little talking about where they got their information from."

"Right."

Jo watched as Harry made his way across the grid towards the exit. She was scheduled to babysit O'Dowd through the night. Just when did Harry expect her to get any rest.

* * *

**_Big thanks to those who've reviewed. This is a bit of a monster and I appreciate your patience :)_**


	4. Chapter 4

Ruth sat and contemplated the picture forming in front of her. According to the illustration on the box, a deer was supposed to be drinking from a pool of water that had formed at the bottom of a cascading waterfall. So far all Ruth could find was one hoof and a series of pieces that looked as though they had no place being positioned next to each other.

She'd tried to disguise the interest she felt the moment that she spied the box sitting in the corner of the room. She'd dismissed it as belonging to either Ros or Adam. Try as she might she couldn't imagine either of them having the patience to tackle a jigsaw. It took a particular mindset to complete one - and Ros in particular she could imagine losing patience with the puzzle, and bashing the pieces into submission within minutes.

She tapped the piece she was holding against the top of the table and forced herself not to look up. As long as she could ignore O'Dowd then there was nothing he could do to get to her. She could feel his eyes upon her, following her moves as she tried to locate the next piece of the puzzle. Thankfully so far he'd made no attempt to offer her help.

She glanced up automatically as she heard swearing from the adjoining room. Adam's phone had rung a couple of minutes earlier, and he had excused himself, but not before warning O'Dowd not to try anything.

Whoever was on the other end of the phone was doing little to improve Adam's mood; she heard him swear again before opening the door and striding back into the room

"So how long was he missing for?" Adam demanded to know as he paced towards the window, the phone held close to his ear.

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"How long before you noticed that my son who, may I remind you, you have a duty of care to look after between the hours of nine and four; how long did it take you to realise that he was missing?"

There was a rustling sound as O'Dowd lowered the newspaper he'd been glancing at and looked across in Ruth's direction. "So he's got a son then?"

Ruth did her best to ignore him and kept her attention firmly focussed on the jigsaw on the table in front of her.

O'Dowd glowered at Ruth before turning to listen in to more of Adam's conversation.

"Well I'm sorry too...I'm sorry that you're a complete incompetent, I'm sorry that I ever thought that I could trust you and your school to look after my son, and I'm sorry that he's so unsettled in the world at the moment that moving him just isn't an option. I trust you to look after him, not to let him wander off when he feels like it."

"You tell em," O'Dowd encouraged.

Adam covered his free ear and turned his back on O'Dowd, heading back towards the window.

"Yes I've heard you say you're sorry, what I haven't heard you say is how you intend to stop this from ever happening again."

"I was only offering encouragement," O'Dowd protested, and pushed himself back into the sofa; picking up the TV remote and raising the volume.

"Encouragement from you is one thing that I think he can well do without," Ruth told him tartly, finally finding her voice. "And turn that thing down for heaven's sake."

"Why? You not paid for a licence for this place?" O'Dowd teased.

Ruth paused, a piece of jigsaw clasped in her hand. Did they have a licence? It would be more than a little embarrassing for the place to be raided by officers from TV licensing.......whilst they were on active duty. That would certainly cause outrage in the Daily Mail. She made a mental note to ask Malcolm about it at the first available opportunity.

Adam abruptly ended the call and placed the phone down on the table, as though needing to put some distance between himself and the person he'd just been talking to. He paced across the room, hands pushed deep into his pockets. He stood motionless for a few moments by the window, before finally reaching a decision. Turning smartly he snatched up the phone again and headed purposefully towards the door.

"Cover for me, I'm going out," he announced.

Ruth raised her eyes from the jigsaw. "And what do I tell Harry if he rings and asks where you are?"

Adam shrugged. "To be honest I don't care... you can tell him that I'm following up a lead on Lord Lucan."

Ruth smiled. "I don't think that's the best idea you've had today."

Adam crossed the short distance to where Ruth was sitting. "I'm guessing that you heard at least part of that?" he whispered, starting to reign his temper in.

She nodded, a slight flush of embarrassment reddening her cheeks.

"I....I didn't mean to...but... you know..."

"Once a spook," Adam smiled, letting her know that he wasn't angry with her. He perched on the end of the table and folded his arms, his breathing starting to return to its normal calm rhythm. "You think I shouldn't go?"

Ruth searched around for the right words. "I think you could do more harm than good," she finally said, lowering her voice, checking to see that O'Dowd couldn't hear them.

"He's my son...what do you expect me to do?"

"Let him fight his own battles."

"But he's not long lost his mother; he needs all the support he can get."

Ruth nodded. "Whilst that's true, one thing he doesn't need is his dad showing up at school, playing the heavy father and throwing his weight around." She met his gaze. "Can you remember when you were that age? How would you have felt if your dad embarrassed you in front of the whole school?"

Adam paused. "I suppose...."

"And it's not as though you're a 'cool dad' either. What job do the school think you have?" Ruth pressed home her argument.

Adam smiled ruefully. "You have a point."

Ruth held up her hands. "At the end of the day it's your decision but I think Wes would appreciate it more if you were there for him when he got home. Have a man to man chat with him...he'd probably get more out of that than you rushing into school and showing him up."

Adam looked at Ruth for a few seconds before reaching forward and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"How did you get to be such a great dad?"

Her mouth twitched at the corner, flattered by the praise from Adam.

"It helps sometimes....to be the outsider."

"Thank you," he told her softly and headed back across the room towards the window.

"What the hell are you two whispering about?" O'Dowd demanded to know as he peered over the back of the sofa.

"Nothing that need concern you," Adam told him sharply. "Now why don't you get back to your porn or whatever the hell that is that you're watching."

O'Dowd pulled a face and reluctantly turned back to face the television. He'd only been in the house a few hours but was already starting to feel a familiar sense of imprisonment. There was only one thing to do when you were bored… and that was make your own entertainment.

* * *

Harry turned up the collar of his coat as he made his way along the path towards the small wooden building that sat beneath the protection of the overhanging trees. The small cafe had been a fixture in the park for as long as he could remember. There was nothing even remotely special about it; the tea it served was weak and its sandwiches were always stale, but the fate of nations had been decided at its creaking wooden picnic tables. Lives had been weighed up and saved, or reluctantly written off as an unfortunate loss, whilst the local residents walked their dogs, and young mothers took their children out in pushchairs. It all felt so familiar to Harry; the names and the faces of those that he had met were lost down the years, but the building remained, and the difficult decisions never seemed to stop coming.

He shook himself out of his reverie as he spotted the figure of the present incumbent of the title Home Secretary. Harry had dealt with a fair number of politicians down the years, and he rated this man as mostly harmless. A good man; one who was sometimes swamped by his work. There were jobs that were not suited to good men; Harry was of the opinion that Home Secretary was one of those jobs.

Two mugs of coffee were sat on the rough wooden surface of the table; small whisps of steam rising into the cool air. The Man turned in his seat and forced a thin smile onto his face as he recognised the approaching figure.

"What was so important that we couldn't meet in the comfort of my office?" the Home Secretary asked with a sigh."You may have spent a lifetime skulking around in the bushes Harry, and loved the thrill of colluding with strange people in unusual places; but I have to say that I much prefer meetings in civilised places; preferably those that have good table service!"

Harry glanced around at their surroundings. He supposed it was a little out of the comfort zone of the present Home Secretary to be meeting at a picnic table next to a small park cafe.

"I thought it was important to keep this meeting as low key as possible."

The Home Secretary took a mouthful of the coffee he'd bought from the cafe, and pulled a face. "I think this is about as low key as a man of my standing can get! I'm assuming that you called me here because you have something important to discuss?"

Harry automatically looked around to check that he wasn't being overheard.

"This is about Martin O'Dowd."

He heard the Home Secretary sigh heavily. "I feared it was going to be. And what is so important about that infernal man that you need to drag me all the way out here?" He cast a glance at his watch. "I have meetings all afternoon. My secretary is going to be wondering where I am."

"Can't you tell him that you're having an affair with a married woman? Isn't that what you high-ranking ministers do when you're not running the country?"

The Home Secretary saw the smirk on Harry's face. "Those were the good old days Harry. These days we're all at the gym, or embarking on the latest health fad; all trying to pretend that we're younger than we are." He paused and looked conspiratorially at Harry. "Between you and me, I much prefer the old fashioned way of burning calories!"

After a few moments the Home Secretary placed his coffee cup down on the rough surface of the table and glanced across the expanse of the park. "There are unpleasant rumblings in the house Harry," he admitted. "The voices of discontent can be heard at practically every turn."

"You must be used to that."

"Of course," he acknowledged. "But this time I fear that they won't stop at mere words. The axis of power could be shifting."

"And you don't like the look of the new horizon?"

"Not one bit. I fear that the underhand way the release of O'Dowd was dealt with is just the tip of the iceberg." The Home Secretary turned to face Harry. "I had no idea that it was coming. No-one consulted me; although they should have. By the time I realised what was going on; I was powerless to do anything."

Harry pulled a face. "What do this breed of young and hungry idiots hope to accomplish by releasing O'Dowd?" He paused for a beat and turned to look at the Home Secretary. "I'm assuming it's the new breed, looking to sweep the cobwebs like you and me out of the way?"

The Home Secretary nodded. "There are rumblings within the house; I rather think they're hoping to cause some considerable upheaval by the end of the month. Quite what they think O'Dowd will do for them I don't know."

Harry took a mouthful of his own coffee, as he waited for a jogger to make their way past.

"I have proof that he's writing a book." Harry glanced quickly in the Home Secretary's direction. "I trust there are no skeletons to banish there for you?"

He shook his head. "O'Dowd has been given nothing but fair and reasonable treatment for the duration of his sentence."

"I have someone looking into the sort of people that O'Dowd would have dealt with back in his active days; just to see how far some of them have come. There may be a few political leading lights who'd prefer it if their previous sympathies didn't come to the fore."

The Home Secretary's eyes widened. "A few sympathies on the wrong side of the question?"

Harry paused before answering. "That would all rather depend on your view of the situation; but in essence ... Yes. I think someone is hoping to use O'Dowd to shake a few apples from the tree... and from what you're saying; I can't be certain that they don't want to have a go at the whole orchard."

The Home Secretary let out a long sigh. "When I was at school and told my career's teacher that I wanted to go into politics, he laughed at me. Told me that if I was lucky, and applied myself, I might end up head teller in a bank. You know what Harry; right now I'd give anything to be stuck behind a desk counting other people's money!"

Harry took another mouthful of coffee and watched the slow progress of the jogger as they made their way around the park.

"I think perhaps it's time I paid a personal visit to Mr O'Dowd. I have an officer working on his publisher; I think I need to go directly to the source."

"You think that's wise?"

"I think," Harry stated as he rose to his feet. "...that we don't have time to sit and wait for the hammer to fall. I'll be in touch, but I'd appreciate a call if anything more comes your way."

"Of course," the Home Secretary nodded, watching as Harry prepared to leave. "But do you think that next time we meet...it could meet somewhere a little warmer?"

"I hope you're not suggesting the fires of hell," Harry told him with a raised eyebrow. "Although when there's finally a changing of the old guard, I'm sure that more than a few of them will end up there!"

* * *

Ros bought the car to a halt and climbed out; taking care to avoid treading in the deep puddles that had formed in the potholes that pitted the length of the narrow road. Her thumb immediately pushed down on the button on the key fob; activating the security alarm. She had the feeling that if she was gone for more than a few minutes, she'd come back to find no car at all.

She glanced around at the tall brick buildings that seemed to hem her in on all sides. There was nothing welcoming about the dark redbrick facades. The windows on the six storey building were small and grimy, and the main door was controlled by an entry system; a barely legible panel screwed to wall told her that the company she wanted were based on the fifth floor.

She pressed the button for Waterhouse and moments later a whiny voice asked her what she wanted.

"I'm here for a meeting with Mr Burrows," she explained as patiently as she could, trying to ignore the heavy drops of rain that were beginning to fall.

"You'll have to make an appointment," the whiny voice came back. "We don't accept cold callers."

"I have an appointment."

"What's your name?"

"It's the one written on the appointments book in front of you," Ros turned up the collar of her coat in an attempt to keep the rain off.

"And you say you have a meeting?"

"I do, in fact I've said it three times now."

There was a pause on the other end. "…It's just that we don't accept unsolicited manuscripts," the voice finally told her.

"Trust me, I'm not here to try and get anything published." The rain began to get heavier and Ros decided that perhaps it was time to cut to the chase. "I've got an appointment with Burrows, I rang earlier…"

"Ms Hunt?"

There was a longer pause this time before the door clicked open, the receptionist realising that she was unlikely to win this particular encounter.

"If you'd like to come on up …" the receptionist began to explain but she was talking to empty air - Ros was already through the doors and heading for the staircase.

* * *

"It was good of you to see me," Ros smiled as she held out a hand. She'd ignored the receptionist as she entered the office and headed straight for the main room at the back. She could still hear the receptionist bleating about something behind her, but she quickly tuned her out and appraised the oily looking man in front of her.

He was wearing a grey suit that looked as though it was long overdue a trip to the dry cleaners and had probably not fitted him properly for at least two years. She extended a hand towards him.

Burrows hastily rose to his feet and wiped his hand on his suit jacket before grasping hold of Ros' hand and shaking it warmly; a thin layer of sweat already prickling on his forehead.

"My pleasure," Burrows replied honestly. "What can I do for you? You were a little vague on the phone."

Ros' smile grew. "Well, if I told you the reason for my visit, I don't think that you would have been quite so quick to roll out the welcome wagon. It is Mr Burrows, isn't it?"

Burrows looked around nervously. "Yes, I'm Burrows. What is it that you want?"

Ros took a seat; brushing away an invisible speck of dirt from her jeans. "It has come to the attention of my employers that you are offering a sum of money to Martin O'Dowd for details of his career as a bomb maker."

The worried smile on Burrow's face immediately became a scowl. "So what if I am? What's it to do with you?"

"Well I'm here to warn you...as a friend you understand...that entering into any sort of an agreement with a convicted murderer could result in a certain amount of...what shall we say? ...Unpleasantness for you."

"Is that supposed to be a threat?"

Ros stared down at her nails. "In my experience a threat is something that someone makes when they are uncertain of a particular outcome. I am here - out of the goodness of my own heart - to warn you that you will be placing yourself in a great deal of danger if you go ahead with the deal with O'Dowd."

Burrows sat back in his chair and folded his arms. "Now listen, whoever you are, I've been threatened by people far more intimidating than you, and I'll tell you exactly what I told them. I am not responsible for anything that writers I contract choose to put in their books. If you have an issue, then I suggest that you take it up with the author directly."

"Oh believe me; I will be. But first, I'm here to make you aware of the sort of trouble you will be getting yourself into if you do something as ill-advised as honouring the contract with O'Dowd."

Burrows smiled, although there was no warmth in the expression. "You think me a stranger to trouble? Far from it. I'm a crusader Miss ..." he let the sentence hang in the air, waiting for Ros to fill in the blanks. When she failed to supply a name, he simply grunted before carrying on. "... I fear no-one. Where there is a truth to be heard; my business gives it a voice."

"You give a 'voice' to any third rate lowlife with the ability to string a sentence together," Ros countered. "And I'm telling you that this particular venture is not a wise one."

"Well I'm willing to take the risk," Burrows growled, not liking the way that the conversation was going.

Ros pursed her lips. "On your own head be it, but don't be too surprised if things work out in ways that you don't want them to."

Burrows shook his head. "You can't bully me you know. I have people looking out for me, and one call to them will result in you being nothing more than a rather forgettable stain on the carpet."

Ros arched an eyebrow. "You think that you have powerful friends Mr Burrows; I wouldn't over-extend yourself. You don't know the cards that I'm about to place on the table."

Burrows shifted uncomfortably in his seat; his mask of bravado beginning to fracture. "Who sent you here?"

"Trust me," Ros assured him, giving him a wide smile. "It's no-one you know, but I'd be lying if I were to say that they knew nothing about you. They could hurt you Mr Burrows, and I mean really hurt you." She took in the expression of fear on his face. "We're not talking physical pain, not yet. We're talking about hitting you where it really hurts ... financially. Just how well do you think your books would stand up to a fingertip search? Just how many of the ... people ... that you do business with would appreciate being contacted and told that they have to provide detailed accounts of all their dealings with you?" Ros sat back in her seat and, with one finger, picked very delicately at a speck of dirt beneath her thumbnail. "You could end up being as popular amongst your clients as you are currently among high ranking members of the government. You are the forgettable stain on the carpet Mr Burrows, and it really wouldn't take much to remove you."

"Get out!" The words were spat from Burrows' mouth and Ros regarded him with a distinctly bored expression on her face.

"I have to say that it's been decidedly unpleasant meeting you. The only glimmer of a consolation is that the conversation has been mercifully brief. Now, I'll tell you the only thing that I'm going to. When the ex-colleagues of Martin O'Dowd come looking for blood, I will personally take great delight in telling them exactly where they can find you...I may even go as far as drawing them a map of the precise location." Without waiting for a reply from Burrows, Ros rose to her feet and stalked from the room.

* * *

_**Many thanks to those who have reviewed the story. I appreciate that the long fics aren't everyone's cup of tea.**_


	5. Chapter 5

"Army bomb disposal experts were called in to ..."

Ruth tried to tune the words of the news report out of her head. O'Dowd had spent the best part of the last hour switching between the various news channels; watching the rolling coverage and providing a running commentary on the material that was being shown.

"Do you think that they'll send me tapes of the programmes if I write to them?" O'Dowd called back over his shoulder in her direction.

Ruth did her best to ignore him and focussed her attention on the half-finished puzzle on the table in front of her.

"I'm quite the celebrity," O'Dowd remarked. "Filling more airtime than any of the so-called current stories."

Ruth refused to reply. She couldn't bear to listen to him crow on about his status. She hoped that Adam would come back into the room soon. He'd taken another call on his phone from Malcolm moments earlier and had vanished off into one of the other rooms; leaving her alone with O'Dowd. She'd done her best to ignore him; but now it felt as though he was homing in on her. She flinched as she heard the creak of the sofa, followed by the pad of his booted feet on the carpet as he headed in her direction.

"I get the feeling that you don't like me," O'Dowd announced as he took the seat opposite Ruth; his dark brown eyes watching her intently.

"I can't say as though I've given it much thought," she told him tightly, keeping her attention fixed firmly on the jigsaw on the table in front of her.

"Come on," he sat forward in his chair and placed his hands on the table. "You've done nothing but think about it since the moment you walked in the room. So, go on ...tell me what you really think. I think you're going to explode if you don't say something."

Ruth did her best to ignore him, but she could feel his eyes as they watched every little move she made.

"Fine!" She sat back in her chair and tapped the piece of the jigsaw she was holding on the table. "I don't like you.... I...I happen to think that it's wrong to kill innocent people just to make your point. I happen to think that it's wrong to exploit a situation and place an explosive device in a place where it can do indiscriminate damage. I don't think anything can ever justify the things that you did, and I swear I'll never understand a legal system where it thinks that people such as you are ever safe to be let back on the street."

O'Dowd's expression remained impassive, his gaze still fixed intently on her. "You feel better for that?"

Ruth shook her head in disbelief. "Don't you have any remorse for the people that you killed?"

O'Dowd shrugged his shoulders. "I did what I had to do. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

"What you had to do? Oh please; don't bother trying to justify your actions."

"Justify my actions! You think I should have to justify my actions to you?" O'Dowd's voice took on an edge. "You think that you have some God given right to sit in judgement on the things that I've done?"

"You don't owe **me** anything," Ruth replied. "But there are families out there who I'm sure would like to know why you thought that it was OK to murder their relatives. They have to live everyday of their lives with that fact whilst you ..."

"I what?" O'Dowd's voice was low as he cut across Ruth's comments, his eyes narrowing. "You think I had it easy; you think that I've spent the last 20 years of my life living in the lap of luxury?"

"God, I hope that that book of yours never sees the light of day if it's going to be nothing but page after page of you trying to justify your existence."

O'Dowd smiled. "So you know about that?" He paused and watched the way that Ruth coloured slightly. "I figured that it would only be a matter of time before you people stuck your noses into things that don't concern you. What does it matter if I decide to write a book? Politicians who've spent their whole lives trying to force their own beliefs down your throat are allowed the freedom to write what they want. Footballers who can barely string two words together, and who's greatest contribution to the world is to kick a ball into the back of a net are allowed an opinion. I don't see why I should be an exception."

"You don't?" Ruth shook her head. "Then there's something very skewed with your world view."

O'Dowd leant forward in his chair. "You've had your say. You want to know what I don't like?" He scanned Ruth's face, looking for some sort of reaction. "I don't like the fact that I'm being 'guarded'- if that's the right word to use – by someone who looks as though they'd be much more comfortable behind a desk and only communicating with the world through the internet." He masked a smirk as he noted the way that Ruth's fingers clutched the piece of the jigsaw tighter. He pushed home his advantage. "Just how much use do you think you're going to be if someone comes in through that door? You're here because they needed the ice maiden to go out and do something. You don't have to answer that as I know I'm right. You're here because you're not good enough to be out there doing anything important. You're the one that they can push around from pillar to post and know that they can get away with it." He tilted his head to one side. "You're the doormat that anyone can walk all over. You do know that, don't you?"

Ruth had no time to respond as the door to the living room opened and Adam returned. She pushed her chair away from the table and rose to her feet.

"He's all yours," she said tightly, heading out of the room.

Adam watched her go.

"What did you say to her?" he demanded to know, turning his attention towards O'Dowd.

O'Dowd rocked back on his chair and grinned. "Nothing for you to worry about."

Adam moved swiftly across the room and pushed O'Dowd's chair back onto all four legs.

"It's in your best interest not to give me anything to worry about," he growled, his face only inches from O'Dowd's.

"Alright, alright, take it easy."

"I'll 'take it easy' when you sit there and shut up."

O'Dowd raised his hands in mock surrender and watched as Adam finally straightened up and walked away. He wondered if the officer was as protective of all his colleagues.

* * *

"So how was the delightful Mr Burrows?" Malcolm enquired as Ros crossed the floor of the Grid.

"The man is slime," Ros replied flatly, dropping her coat over the back of her chair and settling down in front of the computer.

Malcolm frowned and then clicked open a document on his desktop.

Ros sighed. "Yes Malcolm, according to your schedule, I should be at the safe house. Ruth is there at the moment, I'm sure she'll cope with another hour in O'Dowd's company. There are a few things I need to do here."

Malcolm wanted to protest that she was throwing his schedule out of sync but he remained silent and made the necessary adjustments to the chart in front of him.

Ros looked around at the empty Grid.

"Where's Harry?"

"He called in to say that he was going to the safe house. Adam has some issues of his own to deal with."

Ros smirked. "Your chart really is taking a pounding, isn't it!"

"You can laugh about it all you want now," Malcolm told her smartly, "But you wait until you see what it has in store for you tomorrow." He glanced at her over the top of his screen. "You're not adverse to an early start … are you?"

Ros scowled but remained silent.

Malcolm smiled quietly to himself and returned his attention to his own work. One day people would learn that it was never a good idea to upset the person who drew up the schedules.

* * *

Adam stared out at the street again before glancing down at his watch.

"What time did Malcolm say that our visitor was expected?"

Ruth didn't bother lifting her head from the nearly completed jigsaw. Adam had been asking the same question ever since she'd told him about the phone call. "He'll be here any minute," she told him patiently. She held back from mentioning the fact that she'd reported Adam's domestic problem back to the Grid.

Adam sighed and paced back across the room. "I'm not sure that all this coming and going is wise. We're supposed to be blending in, not attracting attention to ourselves by having a steady stream of visitors."

"Harry stated that he needed to come over. You think that I should have told him no?"

Adam glanced in her direction as he heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. "You have a point. He's not the easiest man to say no to."

Ruth took a pause, wondering for a moment if Adam was making some kind of a veiled dig at her. She didn't have the opportunity to press him further as he headed out of the room to answer the front door.

Across the room, O'Dowd turned away from the television as the door to the living room opened again.

"Bloody hell, it's like Piccadilly Circus round here!" He looked at Harry, who had entered and was now shaking the rainwater from his coat. "And who are you? The cabaret?"

Harry ignored O'Dowd's jibe and turned his attention to Adam. "Consider yourself replaced."

Adam looked puzzled. "I thought that I was supposed to be here until ten?"

"So did I, but I believe that you have other things to attend to."

Adam glanced in Ruth's direction before turning back to Harry. "That can wait."

"Not now that I've made my way here it can't. Besides, I have an ulterior motive. Once you've sorted out your domestic arrangements, I want you to get back to the Grid. Malcolm will brief you on the things that need doing."

Adam looked between Harry and Ruth, trying to decide whether it was worth arguing with them. Deciding that he would be wasting his time, he shot a small smile in Ruth's direction and headed out of the room.

Harry turned his attention to O'Dowd. "So this is what we're protecting?" He looked the man up and down. "You and I need to have a little chat."

O'Dowd scowled back at the man in front of him. "Maybe I'm not in the sharing mood," he retorted sarcastically.

He pushed himself up off of the sofa.

"And where do you think you're going?" Harry demanded to know.

O'Dowd smirked. "I've got something to attend to that's a little more pressing than a chat with you."

He glanced back in Ruth's direction. "I can leave the door open if you like."

"Just get out," Harry growled. "Your puerile attempts at humour are something we can all do without."

O'Dowd winked at Ruth before making his way towards the door.

* * *

**_Just a short chapter here, but there's more on the horizon. Thanks again for the reviews :) They're a good motivator._**


	6. Chapter 6

_**As always, thank you for the reviews; it's good to know that you're out there :)**_

* * *

"I have a favour to ask," Harry announced as he paced around the room, familiarising himself with his surroundings. "I need to have a quiet word with O'Dowd."

Ruth glanced in the direction of the door that O'Dowd had disappeared through; checking that it was still closed.

"The book?" she queried with a whisper.

Harry nodded. "The book," he affirmed.

"I take it that something is being done to stop it?"

"Ros is seeing the publishing editor. I'm sure she'll use her own unique brand of charm to ensure the right outcome"

"And you think that will do it?" Ruth countered, the tone in her voice making it plain what she thought.

"It's the first step," Harry tried to reassure her. "We make any other kind of a move and think of all the interest that could raise. O'Dowd's hot property at the moment. The red tops only need the excuse of a sniff of a story to fill up the column inches. If we can squash the story at its source, then that's got to be a good thing."

Ruth shook her head in disgust. "There's no way that someone like O'Dowd should be able to profit from what he's done."

"And I agree with you. But we've got to bear in mind the fact that his actions are likely to ruffle more than a few feathers."

Ruth tilted her head to one side. "You think that someone knew that O'Dowd was writing his memoirs, and thought it would be a good way to air some dirty laundry? Score a few cheap points?"

"It's an unpleasant thought, isn't it?" Harry told her with a thin smile. "There are more than a few people who've seen their allegiances change in the past twenty years. I wonder how pleased some of these people would be to suddenly find themselves named and shamed in O'Dowd's book."

"So you think that's what's going on? The reason that O'Dowd's release was such a surprise to so many people?"

Harry nodded. "I spoke to the Home Secretary this afternoon. He spoke of dissent in the ranks. I get the impression that someone is using O'Dowd as a political tool."

Ruth shook her head. "I still find it hard to believe that O'Dowd was permitted to write a book in the first place."

"Well it's been done now," Harry stated matter-of-factly. "We just have to engage in some damage limitation."

"And will anything be done to make sure that something like it doesn't happen again? ... Well I think we both know the answer to that one!"

"Ruth..." Harry was struck by the anger in her voice.

She looked down at her hands. "Sorry; I just ... never mind. It's not important."

Harry regarded her for a moment.

"What's bothering you? This isn't about the book ... is it?"

Ruth looked around trying to find the right words. "It's just ..." she tailed off – not wanting to admit to her feelings about O'Dowd.

"I understand that O'Dowd isn't the easiest of people to get along with but ..." Harry attempted to broach the subject but tailed off as the door opened and O'Dowd re-entered the room.

O 'Dowd glanced around and noted the way that the conversation immediately died away.

"Don't stop on my account," he smirked.

"Not everything in this world revolves around you," Harry told him firmly.

"Oh, I'm well aware of that. You martial your troops as you see fit."

"Just sit down and shut up."

"You guys all go to the same charm school?"

Ruth ignored O'Dowd and rose to her feet.

"Don't tell me it was something I said?" O'Dowd feigned an expression of hurt.

"It was something** I** said actually," Harry cut across O'Dowd's words. "I think you and I need to have a little chat."

O'Dowd shook his head and smiled. "I don't think so. I don't think that I want to say anything to you at all."

"It could be in your best interest to talk to me," Harry growled.

"Sorry," O'Dowd replied sarcastically. "But you're not my type." He crossed the room and took up his previous seat on the sofa. "You may have gotten used to bossing your minions about, but I'm not one of them." He turned his head and appraised Harry again. "Ex-Army? I'm right, aren't I? You've still got a touch of that public-schoolboy arrogance that they seem to breed in their officers."

Without waiting for a response, O'Dowd picked up the TV remote and turned up the volume on the news channel.

Harry clenched his jaw, willing himself not to lose patience with the man.

"I do need to talk to you," he insisted.

O'Dowd turned up the volume of the television again.

"Doesn't mean that I have to listen to a word of it!"

Harry took a pace towards O'Dowd.

"Harry..." the word of warning was out of Ruth's mouth before she could stop herself. She caught the look of annoyance that flashed across Harry's face and knew that she'd made a mistake. Her eyes darted in O'Dowd's direction and felt her heart sink as she realised that he was staring at her. She'd just handed him another angle of attack. He winked at her before returning his attention to the television.

* * *

Malcolm watched the events begin to unfold in the living room and then turned down the volume on the monitoring feed of the safe house. It was one thing to listen in to the conversation of complete strangers; it was another thing entirely to be eavesdropping on one's colleagues. The material was all being recorded, so if there was anything that needed to be replayed later, it could easily be lifted from the transcripts. He was just aware that he didn't want to end up in the same awkward situation as last time. He'd listened in to an entire evening's worth of conversation, and then put his foot in it during a small get together in the pub a week later; mentioning something that he'd over-heard. Something he'd not realised was supposed to be private. He closed his eyes at the level of mortification he had felt.

He opened his eyes and tried to shake the thought away. It was hardly his fault; he told himself. They knew they were being filmed; they should have been more discrete.

The images on the screen flickered for a moment, and then settled back to their usual display. Malcolm frowned and checked the strength of the signal. Although he personally hated the jobs that involved him getting out of the office and sitting for long hours in cold and often draughty vans - on those operations he could at least be assured that the kit was working properly.

The image on one of the camera feeds flickered again, and Malcolm resisted the urge to tap the side of the monitor. If the fault kept up, then he'd have to make sure that he sent a repair kit in with Ros ... assuming that was that she reported back to the Grid before returning to her shift.

Malcolm glanced at the feeds from the house for one last time before rising to his feet. He needed coffee; he certainly needed something to alleviate the monotony.

As he made his way over to the coffee machine in the corner of the room, he swore that he'd never understand people who claimed to enjoy things like Big Brother. It was bad enough watching a feed of people doing nothing when he was being paid to do it; he couldn't countenance the idea of watching it for fun!

* * *

O'Dowd pressed the remote again and watched as the television channels moved up through the numbers; each image only present on the screen for a few moments before being replaced with another. He sighed heavily; so this was what freedom was like! He'd always imagined that lying around on a sofa with nothing to do would be heavenly, but heaven seemed a long way distant at the present moment in time.

He cast a glance at his watchers; one was buried in a copy of The Times, and the other looked as though they were having a hard time containing their boredom. O'Dowd kept his finger on the remote, and the channels continued to change on the screen. One of them was bound to react ... eventually; and that was all he needed.

To his left there was a scraping sound as a chair was pushed away from the table. He watched as the figure rose and headed towards the kitchen.

He pushed himself quietly off of the sofa; perhaps there was an opportunity to do a little something to alleviate the boredom.

He followed Ruth as she headed into the kitchen and allowed himself a small smile as he watched the way she tensed as she realised he was behind her.

"You going to make me a drink?" he wanted to know.

Ruth pursed her lips; determined not to let O'Dowd get to her. "I think you're more than capable of doing that for yourself…I'm not your slave."

"No," O'Dowd agreed. "But it is your job to make sure that I get everything that I want…and at this precise moment in time what I want is a cup of tea."

Ruth gestured towards the kettle. "I believe you're familiar with one of these. Shouldn't take you too long to master the concept of the cold water tap."

She turned her back on him and reached for one of the glasses that were sitting on the draining board.

"Now that's not very friendly," he chided.

"It wasn't meant to be," she told him tartly.

"What is it? Am I getting in the way?" O'Dowd watched as Ruth picked up one of the glasses. "Would you rather that I left you alone with old Harry back there?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him tightly.

"That little word of warning - that little 'familiar' gesture - now that's not something you'd expect from a seasoned professional..." he paused. "But I was forgetting; this isn't really your territory at all, is it? Where is it you should be right now?..." He leant against the doorframe and watched her " .... at home with your cat perhaps?"

Ruth tried her best to ignore him, but she could feel his eyes as they followed her every move. She placed the glass back down on the worktop and turned to face him.

"I'm not interested in playing your stupid little games," she told him as firmly as she could.

"No? That's a shame, because there are a few things I think you need to realise."

Ruth raised her eyebrows. "You think you've got anything to say that I'd want to hear?"

"Oh no," O'Dowd told her with a smile as he stepped further into the room. "I very much doubt that you want to hear it."

O'Dowd looked squarely at Ruth. "You think that you're so in the moral right. I bet you were there at university with your CND and your Anti Apartheid badges; crying over the culling of seals, and wringing your hands over the export of veal." He shook his head "And I bet you never once got those hands dirty; never once went beyond pinning a badge on the lapel of your coat and signing meaningless petitions; believing that you were in some way changing the world. You think you believe in causes...let me tell you; you know nothing about causes...about belief. And I doubt you'll ever understand."

"When understanding causes means the murder of innocent civilians then I truly hope that you're right." Ruth's voice was shaking with anger.

O'Dowd shook his head again. "You don't understand...You never see the bigger picture." He nodded back in the direction of the main living area. "Your man out there...Harry; he'd know what I was talking about...about there being such a thing as collateral damage. You may not have blood on your hands....but you're the only person in this place who hasn't. You'll never change the world by hiding behind a desk." He took a pace into the room. "There comes a time when you have to stand up and decide where to pin your colours."

Ruth shook her head. "There's never an excuse for what you did."

O'Dowd closed the gap between them, his tall wiry frame dwarfing Ruth. Inclining his head, he whispered into her ear "I did what I had to do...and you know what? I'd do it again in a heartbeat if I had to."

Ruth looked for a way out, but O'Dowd had left her no means of escape. She raised her head to see him grinning wolfishly at her.

"Is this how you get your kicks now?" she asked him, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice.

"You started it," he reminded her. "There's nothing that says that I have to play by your rules. You think that your words are powerful enough to stop me? Well let's see your words move me out of the way." He inched forward, forcing Ruth to back up further. She flinched as she backed into the worktop.

"This isn't going to work," she told him, refusing to raise her eyes to look at him again.

"Isn't it?' he queried, reaching out and placing both hands on the worktop surface on either side of her. "From where I'm standing, I'd say that I had the stronger position...wouldn't you?"

Ruth struggled to keep control of her breathing; her heart was pounding in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to reach out and try and push O'Dowd away from her. She knew that the effort would be futile though. He was taller than her and he was definitely stronger.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to raise her head and look him straight in the face.

"You don't intimidate me," she told him, trying not to flinch at the feel of his breath on her face. "When the only way out of a problem is violence; then there's something very wrong."

He arched an eyebrow. "Then I'd say that there was something very wrong here...wouldn't you?"

The two stared at each other, tension thick in the air.

"Ruth?" Harry's voice drifted in from the living room.

Ruth's eyes remained locked with O'Dowd's, challenging him to maintain his gaze.

"Ruth?" Harry's voice called again, and there was the sound of movement from the next room.

O'Dowd smiled and winked at Ruth before stepping away from the counter and turning to face the sink, picking up a glass from the draining board and pouring himself some water from the tap.

"Is everything alright?" Harry reached the doorway and surveyed the scene in front of him. O'Dowd was the picture of innocence, but Ruth's posture spoke of tension. She was ramrod straight, her hands at her side bunched into fists.

"Everything's fine," O'Dowd replied, taking a mouthful of water. "Your girlfriend and I were just having a full and frank exchange of views."

Harry took a measured step into the room. "I suggest that you take your water and return to the living room."

"And if I don't want to?"

"Then I open up the windows and doors and invite in all the people who are queuing around the block waiting for the chance to plant a bullet in your brain. Trust me; it's something I'd very much like to do."

O'Dowd glared at Harry before pouring the remaining water down the plughole and then dropping the glass into the sink.

Looking between Harry and Ruth, O'Dowd made his way across the kitchen. "Just let me know when you want me to lock myself in the bathroom so that the two of you can be alone."

"Just get back in the other room," Harry warned, stepping out of the way so that O'Dowd could pass by.

As soon as he was certain that O'Dowd was out of earshot, Harry turned his attention to Ruth.

"Are you alright?" his tone was one of concern.

"Of course I'm alright," Ruth snapped back. "I didn't need you to come bursting in and play the conquering hero."

"I was just worried that he was up to something," Harry told her honestly, a little stung by her reactions.

She heard the note in his voice and forced a watery smile onto her face. "I just don't think that it's a good idea you giving him anymore ammunition. What if he starts talking to the others when they come on shift?"

Harry shrugged his shoulders. "What if he does? Ruth, there are times when you worry about the strangest things." He paused. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm fine," she told him decisively. 'I was going to make tea. Do you want some?"

"Assuming there's no whisky in the cupboard, then tea will be fine." He paused in the doorway, uncertain of whether to say anything further.

Ruth proceeded to busy herself with the tea things and Harry decided that perhaps a tactical withdrawal at this point was in order.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Apologies for the delay. I had a surprisingly busy start to the year.**_

* * *

Ruth's fingers danced along the rim of the mug that was on the table in front of her; tapping out an irregular rhythm as she glanced once again at the clock on the mantelpiece. Since their spat in the kitchen, Ruth had done her best to keep her distance from O'Dowd. She knew full well that he was trying to unsettle her, and she was determined not to give him the satisfaction of knowing that he'd succeeded. She had made tea for Harry as a sort of peace-offering, and he had accepted the gesture with his usual quiet acknowledgement. She'd been grateful that he'd not tried to push her for details about what had happened in the kitchen. O'Dowd had remained in the room with them for the remainder of the afternoon however; spoiling any chance of explaining herself.

She glanced up at the clock again; wondering how much longer it would be until Ros returned.

"I get the feeling that you're not enjoying the company," Harry told her with a smile as he finished laying out the cards for yet another game of patience.

The fingers immediately stopped their dance and Ruth shot him an awkward smile.

"Sorry."

Harry nodded in the direction of O'Dowd, who appeared to be dozing.

"I take it our guest is the reason for your desire to be someplace else."

Ruth glanced in the direction of the sofa, checking that the man's eyes were truly shut before nodding.

"He gives me the creeps," she whispered confidentially.

Harry frowned as he reached the end of the first pass of cards, still unable to make a move.

"Has he said anything to you?"

Ruth thought back to the conversation in the kitchen.

"Nothing," she told Harry with a shake of her head. She was determined not to let the man intimidate her.

"Hmmm, well let me know if he does. From what I hear, he doesn't usually waste the opportunity of winding people up."

Ruth flinched as the phone on the table beeped twice; the display screen lighting up, informing her that there was a message waiting.

"That'll be Ros." Without bothering to pick up the message, Ruth pushed her chair away from the table and rose to her feet.

"I'm sorry you had to spend your afternoon like this," Harry apologised, watching as Ruth checked and double-checked her belongings; always somehow managing to make it look as though she was in danger of leaving something vital behind.

Finally, seemingly happy with the arrangements she flashed him a rare smile.

"I've spent worse afternoons," she told him honestly. She nodded towards the sofa. "It's just a shame that he was here."

Harry's mouth twitched with amusement, wondering if Ruth realised that she'd just admitted that she liked the idea of the two of them spending quiet time together somewhere. He thought it best, in the circumstances, not to point that out to her.

"I know I don't need to tell you to be careful...just..."

Ruth sighed. "Check in with Malcolm and make sure that no-one follows the car home," she completed the sentence. "It's fine Harry, I have done this sort of thing before you know."

Harry waited for Ruth to get halfway across the room before calling her back.

"Do you not want to take your phone with you?"

He watched as she came to a halt and paused, taking a deep breath before turning on her heel and stalking back towards the table, sweeping the phone from the surface with a scowl on her face.

"Red five on black six," she told him smartly, and headed back across the room again.

Harry's eyes immediately darted down to the cards laid out in front of him. Sure enough there was the move, just as she'd said. He raised his head to say something only to hear the latch on the door click shut.

Smiling, he completed the move and turned over the next card in the pile.

"So are you sleeping with her then?" a lazy voice from the sofa floated into the air.

Harry ignored the question, the smile on his face quickly masked. He concentrated on the cards as he heard the sofa creak, indicating that O'Dowd was moving.

"Just stay where you are," Harry said calmly. "Keep away from the windows, you know the drill."

"Playing the perfect professional are you now?" O'Dowd said with a mocking tone, turning his attention towards the now closed door. "So..." he let the word hang in the air. "Are you getting it together with your little moral compass? There's a bit of an age gap thing going on there....if you don't mind me saying.

"If you don't have anything useful to say then I suggest that you sit down and shut up. If it's entertainment you're after, I'm sure that you'll find that Cbeebies is somewhere among the television channels."

O'Dowd grinned. "Hit a little nerve did I? I always thought it was an urban myth that MI5 kept all its affairs within the office ... seems it's true after all. Got the impression that she'd be better at the theory than the practical though."

O'Dowd waited for some sort of response from Harry. When he realised that none was forthcoming, he sighed heavily and turned back to face the television.

"All quiet then?" Ros' questioning tone broke the silence as she opened the door and made her way into the room.

"God help us," O'Dowd remarked flatly, turning his head to watch her as she entered. "The ice maiden's back. I can just feel the temperature in the room plummeting."

"I see you haven't managed to get him shot whilst I was away." Ros pointedly ignored O'Dowd as she crossed the room, heading towards the kitchen, looking to deposit the bags that she was carrying.

Harry's nose wrinkled at the smell that was emanating from the plain white carriers. "That isn't curry, is it?"

Ros nodded. "Not my choice I'm afraid. This is what happens when you let Zaf order the food. This is probably what he thinks of as a well-balanced meal!"

"It's going to stink the place out," Harry grumbled, placing the remaining cards on the table and moving to help Ros.

"I hope you're hungry...it looks as though he's ordered enough for half a dozen people."

She placed the bags down on the kitchen worktop and started searching the cupboards for plates.

Harry joined Ros in the kitchen and proceeded to pull open the drawers, searching for cutlery.

"Did you have any luck with Burrows?" Harry whispered.

Ros shook her head. "He's got his mind so fixed on the fortune that he imagines he'll make, that he won't listen to anything."

"Can't say as though I'm completely surprised," Harry admitted. "But I was hoping that he'd see reason."

"I don't believe that it's a concept he's familiar with. Adam's back on the Grid. He suggested that we just leave and let O'Dowd get what's coming to him."

"The suggestion's tempting," Harry admitted, closing a drawer and looking around for something else to make him look busy.

"You don't have to go through the whole routine just for my benefit," O'Dowd's voice floated in from the living room. "If you want to talk about me, go right ahead."

Ros slammed a cupboard door shut.

"Are you sure that we're not allowed to kill him?" she growled under her breath.

Harry suppressed a smile and pulled open another drawer, removing three sets of cutlery. If Ros and O'Dowd were left alone in the same room for too long, he had a sneaking suspicion that only one of them would end up leaving the room alive.

* * *

"Come on, come on," Malcolm coaxed as he waited impatiently for the scan he was running to complete. He'd spent the best part of the afternoon searching through the emails that had been received by the support group that Matthews belonged to. He'd been hoping to come across something that would help in the discovery of who was leaking information. He'd worked his way back through the traffic on the group, and most of it had followed a similar pattern. One person adding to an existing thread when a birthday or a special occasion was looming; the others replying with words of sympathy and support. There had been little variety in the pattern of posting until the early hours of the day of O'Dowd's release. At a little before 3am; someone had accessed the group's account and started a new thread. The poster was a member of the group but had been inactive for a couple of years. The thread detailed the impending release of O'Dowd, and raised questions as to what the other members of the group should do. There was something about the posting out of the blue that piqued Malcolm's interest. He wasn't sure exactly what it was, but he was determined to find out where it had come from.

From across the office he heard a low whistle from Zaf. He sighed inwardly; knowing that there was more to come. In his experience Zaf was unable to keep a piece of news to himself for more than a few moments. Sure enough moments later Zaf's voice broke the silence.

"Just what did you tell Ros to do to Simon Burrows?"

"I'm sorry?" Malcolm raised his head from his work and glanced across the office.

Zaf pointed at the screen he was sat in front of. "I was just looking at the updates coming in and there's a call placed from Waterhouse Publishing claiming that they've had a break in."

Malcolm pushed his chair away from his desk made his way quickly to Zaf's side; scanning the monitor, looking for the relevant story.

"That's a little on the suspicious side," he agreed as he read the copy. "It's a little too close to pass off as coincidental." He tilted his head to one side as he weighed up a thought. "You don't seriously suppose that Ros …" he let the thought tail off, trying to work out if she would have had the time to pay another visit there before arriving at the safe house.

Zaf's face broke into a smile. "I'm not sure exactly what she's capable of," he admitted. "But I don't think she'd resort to breaking and entering. Seems a little too... pedestrian for her – lacking a little something in style. Now, if there was a report of a message scrawled on the wall in blood, or a small rodent eviscerated on Burrows' desk … then I might believe it was Ros!"

Malcolm tried and failed to suppress a smile. "There's a chance that it's nothing more than a break-in ...but ..."

"I'm not due to start my shift for another hour or so. You want me to take a look at the place?" Zaf offered. "I should be able to get there and back without much trouble."

Malcolm considered the matter for a moment. "Would you mind?"

"I'm on it." Zaf pushed his chair away from the desk and rose to his feet. "If there's even the slightest hint of rodent remains you'll be the first to know!"

* * *

O'Dowd tensed and let out a gasp of pain.

Ros did her best to ignore him and continued reading her book, angling the pages to pick up more light from the lamp in the corner. Moments later there was another gasp of pain, louder this time.

"If you're looking to garner sympathy, you are wasting your time," she told him drily, turning a page without bothering to look up.

O'Dowd grimaced and clutched at his stomach. "I bet you sit there with that supercilious smile on your face when you watch the appeal films on Children in Need," he told her through gritted teeth.

Ros ignored him and continued with her reading.

"Oh come on," O'Dowd pleaded after a few moments. "You've got to do something for me."

Ros raised an eyebrow; still not turning her attention to O'Dowd. "Have I?"

O'Dowd waited for another wave of pain to pass. "Sure. You've got a duty of care to protect me. That means that you've got to look after my health."

"No," Ros corrected him. "It just means that we're not allowed to let anyone kill you. If you kill yourself, then that's hardly our fault."

"I'll see you lose your job for this," O'Dowd snapped; his anger getting the better of him.

"You think so? You think that the British Government is going to sack me on the word of a convicted murderer...I don't think so...do you?"

"You can't deny me medical care...It's against the Geneva Convention."

"....Which applies in wartime, chiefly to non-combatants and prisoners of war. You, as far as I'm aware, fall into neither category. I don't think it was ever ratified to include ex-cons." Ros slowly licked the tip of one finger and turned another page of the book. "If you knew you had an ulcer, then you shouldn't have eaten spicy food."

"I didn't see much else on offer."

Ros didn't reply but simply turned another page of her book. She was going to have a little chat with Zaf when his shift began.

* * *

Outside the offices of Waterhouse Publishing a thin strip of blue and white striped tape fluttered forlornly in the breeze. As a barrier it was next to useless, as an indicator that Zaf had in fact reached the right place, it was invaluable.

He had hugged the shadows; waiting impatiently in the darkness of an abandoned doorway for the last officer to secure the premises and head off back to his patrol car.

Satisfied that there was no-one to see him, Zaf broke cover and ducked beneath the thin strand of tape. He assessed the strength of the lock in seconds. A locksmith had made a hasty repair job on the door, but the quality of workmanship gave Zaf the impression that the persistent rain and the lateness of the hour had been at the forefront of the man's mind. He made short work of the lock, and silently slipped into the darkness within.

Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a slender torch and switched it on, letting the beam play over the hallway in front of him. The floor was coated in unopened letters. It was apparent that the current occupants of the building cared little for the previous tenants. He let the beam move on a little further and it washed over the bottom of the staircase. He let out a sigh as he headed towards it; just once he wanted to investigate a company where they had their premises on the ground floor!

Finally reaching the correct floor, he made his way through the still open door and into the mess that the intruder had made.

Zaf let out a low whistle as he took in the state of the office. Whoever had been there had been thorough. It looked as though every cupboard had been emptied; the contents were now strewn across the floor in untidy piles of scrunched up paper.

He grimaced as he felt his shoes sink into soaking wet carpet. A second sweep across the small room revealed the fact that the water cooler had been tipped over; Zaf frowned as he realised the effect that that was likely to have on the documents on the floor. There was no sign of a computer anywhere in the room, and Zaf had the feeling that Burrows wasn't likely to be too forthcoming about the location of a back up.

He let the beam of the torch play over the surfaces again; the intruder had been thorough and Zaf found that he couldn't quite silence the nagging voice at the back of his mind. Opportunist burglars were rarely tidy; they searched the places where valuables were most likely to be found and they were in and out of a building in the shortest time possible. The devastation in front of him pointed towards someone who'd been unhurried and methodical in their approach; every cupboard had been opened – documents had been strewn everywhere as though someone were trying to mask where their real interest had lain.

He killed the torch as he heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps on the stairs. The heavy rain had masked the sound of the front door opening and Zaf realised that he was now trapped. The only way out was past whoever it was on the stairs. He glanced around; looking for something to use as cover. He moved as quickly and quietly as he could across the room and ducked behind one of the emptied filing cabinets.

Moments later the door to the office was opened and a narrow beam of white light crept across the debris.

"You may as well come out," a voice called out. "I know you're here. I saw you enter the building a little while ago." There was a pause and Zaf heard the click of a safety catch being released. ".... There's nowhere to run."

* * *

O'Dowd stretched out lazily and stared across at Ros. "Where's your boss then?"

Ros ignored O'Dowd and kept her attention fixed firmly on the book she was reading. Much to her dismay O'Dowd's ulcer appeared to no longer be giving him any discomfort and he was back to his irritating ways.

"I bet his slipped off to go and see his girlfriend..." O'Dowd paused. "You do realise that he's having an affair with that other officer? That one that you replaced? The one that looks as though she wouldn't say boo to a goose!"

Ros did her best to carry on with her book, but O'Dowd wasn't so easily put off. "I'm assuming that they don't go Mills-ing and Boon-ing around the office? Not with your man Harry at his age anyway. I'm sure it's all furtive meetings in empty broom closets, and illicit get togethers among the filing cabinets."

Ros sighed. "Believe it or not, I actually couldn't care less about the relationships that may or may not be going on between my colleagues."

She heard O'Dowd shift in his seat.

"Oh come on," he argued. "I bet you're just a little bit curious? You want to know why everyone who isn't you in the department seems to be getting some."

Ros raised her head and placed her book face down on the arm of the chair. "If paying you some attention means that you are going to move on from this incredibly childish conversation, then consider me all ears," she told him flatly.

"Let me guess... You never were one to join in with the rest, were you?" O'Dowd tilted his head to one side as he regarded the pouting Ros. "What is it? Only child syndrome? Never learnt to play well with others?"

Ros remained silent and O'Dowd considered her for a few more seconds. "No, scratch that, you had to learn the art of manipulation somewhere. Middle child?" he scanned her impassive face. "I'm right, aren't I? Always there ready to play off the oldest against the youngest and yet come away from it looking as though butter wouldn't melt. Mind you, you always had to fight for the attention, didn't you? Not the oldest, not the first born. But also not the cute youngest one. The middle one…the one of least importance." O'Dowd smiled. "I'd say you went a little overboard in over-compensating for your lack of status."

"Shut up." Ros told him flatly.

O'Dowd held up a hand. "Did you hear that? That was the sound of a nerve being struck. Unmistakable."

Ros rose from her seat and headed towards the kitchen. "You must have just been the most popular person on your wing," she remarked as she flicked on the kitchen light.

O'Dowd watched her go, stretching out in his chair, the smile on his face spreading. When there wasn't anything else to distract you, there was nothing quite like making your own entertainment.

* * *

Oliver Mace sat in the dark and stared at the ringing phone. It was getting to the stage where he no longer wanted to answer it; no longer wanted to find out what was going on.

Reaching forward, he reluctantly lifted the phone from its receiver.

"We need to have a little chat," the voice on the other end of the line told him.

Mace licked his lips nervously. "There's nothing we can do to touch him now."

He held the phone away from his ear as he heard the laugh from the other end.

"Now's not the time to play the innocent here Oliver. You either know where he is, or you know where to look to find the information."

Mace shook his head. "I can't do that. There won't be a paper trail."

"I've come too far to fall down at this little hurdle Oliver. If you can't or won't help me, then I can only assume that you're with them. When the dominoes start to topple, you make sure that you're not in their path."

Mace massaged his tired eyes with his free hand. Life was full of decisions; some of them were simple and affected no-one ... some were so huge that they had the potential to change the political outlook of a nation. He took a breath. "If I tell you what I know ... what happens then?"

"We carry on being friends and you can expect to stay on until you draw your pension."

"I meant ...."

"I am well aware what you meant Oliver. What do you care for the ground troops of Five? It's not as though they're in a position to further your career. We need O'Dowd silenced. We'll tidy up all the loose ends and none of it will lead back to you."

"These are still officers of the service that we're talking about," Mace protested.

"Grow a set Oliver, and do it quick. I want the location of the safe house, and I want it before the end of the night."

Mace opened his mouth to protest but was met with nothing but the sound of the dial tone. He slowly replaced the handset and sat back in his chair. He clasped his hands together and tapped his thumbs upon his upper lip as he thought.

After a few moments he made his decision. Reaching forward he turned on the monitor of his PC. There were folders where the information he was seeking could be found.... and he knew a back way in.


	8. Chapter 8

Zaf rose slowly from his place behind the filing cabinet. He blinked and raised a hand to shield his eyes from the beam of the torch that was immediately shone in his direction.

"It's not what you think," he began to explain, but was cut off almost immediately.

"Shut up and turn around."

"I'm here because..."

"Turn around and face the wall."

Sighing heavily, Zaf took a pace to the left and tried to get a view of the man holding the torch. Before the full beam of the torch was once again shone directly in his face, Zaf was able to get a glimpse of the man. He recognised him immediately from the files.

"Mr Burrows," Zaf tried again to open up a dialogue with the man. "It really is in your best interest to talk to me."

The beam of the torch dropped slightly as Burrows reacted to the fact that the intruder knew his name.

"You're with her, aren't you?" he demanded to know.

"I'm sorry?"

"Her ...that intimidating bitch who was here earlier. You're with her, aren't you?"

Despite the situation Zaf smiled. "I might be."

"And she sent you to do her dirty work, did she? Are you her lackey? Is that what this is?"

"No Mr Burrows. You've got it wrong. We're the guys in the white hats. I can assure you that none of this is down to me."

Burrows shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "And I suppose you can prove what you say?"

"I don't go around carrying a card telling the world who I work for," Zaf told him, wishing that he could turn away from the wall and talk to Burrows on a more even footing. "You look as though you could do with a little help."

"I think I've had just about enough help from the likes of you."

"For the last time Mr Burrows, I don't know who did this; it certainly wasn't me."

Zaf held his breath and waited for a response from Burrows. Judging by the tone of his voice, the man was on edge. If the gun he was holding was loaded, then there was a very real chance that he'd do something stupid if spooked. He listened carefully; trying to gage what Burrows was doing. He heard a scraping sound, and then the creak of leather.

Not lowering his hands; Zaf slowly turned around. Burrows was seated in a chair; the gun pointing towards the floor. The man seemed to be at the end of his tether.

"I never signed up for any of this," he complained softly. "I publish books; that's it."

"Have you got any idea who might have done this to your office?" Zaf asked the question cautiously, not wanting to upset Burrows further.

The gun was immediately raised up again and Zaf took a pace back.

"I had no trouble until I took on O'Dowd. I was told that this deal would be the making of me, but in recent weeks I've had nothing but hassle after hassle."

"You must have realised that O'Dowd had enemies," Zaf was quick to point out. "Raising up the ghosts of the past was bound to make a few people unhappy."

Burrows shot Zaf a quizzical look. "Is that what you think this is, some sort of action from a former associate?"

Zaf gestured around the office. "Well I'd say it was pretty obvious that someone's trying to send you a message, or perhaps you imagine that this is the world's first Burglar-o-gram!"

"Don't get smart," Burrows warned. "You've still to convince me that you're not involved in it somehow."

"Think about it. If I had burgled the place, would I be back here again now?"

"If you hadn't found what you wanted .... then yes!"

Zaf held the man's gaze for a few moments. "This wasn't me. This isn't my style. If I had searched your office then you wouldn't have ever known about it. Grand destructive gestures are not in the handbook."

Burrows pushed his free hand through his thinning hair. "That bitch of a colleague of yours was making it free and easy with the threats. What's to say that she hasn't been the one to set all this up?"

Zaf shook his head slowly. "If she'd set you up ... trust me, you wouldn't be here to bleat about it now."

Burrows scowled at Zaf, but remained silent.

"She came here to warn you that you were messing in things that were too big for you to handle." Zaf paused. "I think perhaps you know she had a point."

"She threatened me," Burrows protested.

"She's not really one for social pleasantries," Zaf admitted. "Got a D from her Finishing School. Why don't you take the hint though ... get away from this business with O'Dowd. I get the feeling that this is just the first warning."

Burrows shook his head. "They're not scaring me."

Zaf looked levelly at Burrows. "We both know that that's a lie. This business is bigger than you can imagine. Get out of it now; whilst you still can, or it won't just be your office that they trash."

Burrows gestured towards the door. "Get out," he ordered.

"Mr Burrows, I really think you need to listen to what I'm trying to tell you..." Zaf protested, but Burrows wasn't listening.

"I said 'Get out'."

Reluctantly, Zaf started to move forwards; his attention firmly on the gun that was still held in Burrows' right hand.

"You need to think carefully ..." Zaf again tried to get through to Burrows, but was again cut short.

"I thought I told you to get out," Burrows snarled. "I'll manage this better without being seen collaborating with the likes of you."

Realising that he was wasting his time trying to reason with the man, Zaf slowly headed out of the office - his senses on high alert; waiting to see if Burrows was going to try anything else. To his surprise he made out into the hallway without any problems.

Glancing at his watch, he realised that he was now running late. Getting to the safe house had to be his priority. He'd call Malcolm en route, and let him know about the state that Burrows was in. Although he thought that the man was slime, he knew that he had to be looked after. The manuscript for the book had to be taken from Burrows before someone killed him for it.

Leaving the building and heading out into the driving rain; Zaf thought back over Burrows' comments. He glanced briefly back up at the crumbling old building. Was Burrows right to suspect Ros of being involved? He shook his head as he broke into a run; there was no sign of rodent evisceration; it couldn't be Ros.

* * *

O'Dowd smiled as he caught sight of the young blond officer looking at him over the top of the newspaper she was pretending to read. She'd arrived about an hour earlier and had immediately settled onto one of the chairs; obviously prepared for a long shift. He'd noticed the way that there was very little in the way of communication between her and the Ice Maiden. There had been the briefest of greetings, and then nothing. No small talk, no passing of pleasantries. O'Dowd was trying to work out if there was history there, or whether they just didn't know each other very well. She was definitely the new girl, in terms of experience; something about her demeanour, which had yet to speak of a sense of world weariness. The others all had it, in one form or another, but she had yet to be affected by the work that she did.

"I don't bite you know," he told her with a smile as her head popped up from behind the newspaper again. He watched with satisfaction as she immediately ducked back down behind the headlines. "I was never convicted on that charge."

He waited for her to say something, but she remained silent, with her head buried behind a wall of newsprint.

"Come on," he encouraged. "We're going to be here all night ... it's going to be a very long night if the only thing you're going to do is stare at me."

Jo hesitated and then slowly lowered the paper, folding it smartly in half before placing in down on the table. She folded her arms and sat back in her chair.

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

O'Dowd's smile grew wider. "Well I hadn't actually planned out the topics for the entire evening... Why don't we start with something simple? ... What's your name?"

"Jo."

"Just Jo?" he pushed

"As far as you're concerned...yes."

"Ahh, the eternal secrecy of the security services. I suppose there's no point in asking if that's your real name or whether you're just wearing it for the weekend?"

Jo shook her head. "No point in asking at all."

O'Dowd smiled again. "Thought not." He looked around at the bare furnishings. "So did they tell you that it was going to be this exciting when they recruited you?"

"I'm sorry?"

"When you were recruited I bet they didn't tell you that a lot of your job would involve sitting in badly furnished rooms, babysitting people and wishing that you were somewhere else."

Jo's lips curled into a wry smile. "Strangely, no. They made it seem much more exciting."

"Never believe the promotional posters," he warned her with a smile. "It's like the trailer to a film...They just show you all the best bits."

Despite herself, Jo found herself smiling back at him. There was something completely disarming about the man. She wasn't really sure exactly what she had expected him to be like; but she hadn't envisaged the mood in the room being so relaxed.

She glanced towards the kitchen. Ros appeared to be scrubbing the life out of the work surfaces. She'd done everything to keep out of the same room as O'Dowd, and Jo couldn't help but wonder what had happened before she'd arrived.

"She secretly fancies me," O'Dowd's voice broke the silence.

Jo turned quickly back to face him; aware that he had picked up on what was distracting her. She shrugged her shoulders. "She's just a neat freak."

O'Dowd shook his head. "She's just someone who doesn't like it when she's not in charge."

He caught the look of confusion that passed across Jo's face, and gestured around the room. "You know full well that this place is under complete surveillance. Seems she doesn't like the idea of Big Brother watching her anymore than I do." He paused. "Tell me that you're not addicted to that awful series?"

"We're not here to discuss my viewing habits," she told him smartly.

"Well they're going to be more interesting than discussing mine," he told her frankly. He nodded towards the kitchen again. "Tell me that you're not planning on using her as a mentor."

Jo arched an eyebrow. "What makes you so concerned?"

He pulled a face. "You really want to end up like that?"

Jo folded her arms. "We are not here to discuss my colleague like that."

"Pity!" He leant forward in his seat. "But you don't like her, do you?' he asked conspiratorially.

He scanned her impassive face. "I knew it," he told her with a wink. "You can't stand her, can you? She's like some giant icicle that just sucks all the warmth and fun out of a room." He sat back in his chair again. "You have my sympathy."

"I'm pleased to see that you seem to be settling in!" Ros' clipped tones filled the air, and despite herself, Jo jumped.

She wondered just how much of O'Dowd's words her colleague had heard.

"He was just saying hello, that's all."

Ros narrowed her eyes and glared at O'Dowd. "Just make sure that that's all he says. He's an unscrupulous little shit who'll get under your skin if you give him the chance."

O'Dowd blew a kiss in her direction. "I love you too," he told her with a smile. "It's nice to see that you have so much faith in your colleagues that you need to tell them how to do their jobs."

"Just shut up and behave."

"I wasn't doing anything wrong," O'Dowd protested.

"He wasn't," Jo agreed with him, before realising that it had been the wrong thing to say. Ros shot her a look.

"I'm glad to see that you've decided whose side you are on. Perhaps you'd like to offer your services as his full-time guardian. God knows I'd rather be somewhere else."

O'Dowd watched the exchange between the two officers with barely disguised amusement. He knew that the Ice Maiden would be too professional to lose her cool whilst in the house; but he was having immense fun seeing just how far he could push her. The only disappointment was the fact that she was likely to be replaced with another officer in the not too distant future. He sighed and then stifled a yawn. Perhaps there was something to look forward to in the morning.

* * *

Burrows stood in the darkness and surveyed what remained of his office. The glow from the streetlight outside revealed only a little of the devastation; the corners of the office still shrouded in dark shadows. He let out a long breath and reached for the torch that sat on the table next to him. He'd known from the start that it was going to be risky taking on someone like O'Dowd as a client; but the promises of what he would receive had made the offer irresistible. Sure he'd upset a few people; ruffle a few feathers, but what he had to reveal was going to be worth the cost.

He allowed a small smile to spread across his face. There might be little that could be done to save the contents of his office; but he still held what really mattered.

He crossed to the far side of the room and knelt down upon the sodden carpet. The walls of the office were made up of a series of white wooden panels. Burrows let the beam of the torch run along the panel in front of him; searching for the pressure point.

Engaged as he was in the retrieval of the manuscript from its hiding place, he never heard the footsteps that made their way stealthily up the stairs. He never heard the slight creak as the door to the main office was pushed open. He heard nothing until the split-second before the bullet embedded itself in his brain .... and by that point, it was too late.

* * *

Zaf sighed and looked around at the four blank walls. "What are we doing here?"

Jo smiled. "That's a little deep for this early in the shift!"

When her comment was met with no reply, Jo shifted in her chair to glance across at her colleague. Zaf had replaced Ros only an hour earlier, and in the time he had spent in the house, he had done nothing but pace around the place. She had tried to find out what was bothering him, but he was giving little away.

"What's up with you?" she pushed a little further for information.

Zaf shrugged his shoulders and let out a long breath before gesturing around at the room. "This..." he stated, as though that explained everything. He rose to his feet and paced across to the window. "I mean what are we doing here, baby-sitting him? ... This isn't what I joined the service to do."

Jo smiled despite the anger in Zaf's voice. "No-one said it would all be adventure," she reminded him, but he shrugged off her comments.

"But this ... Sitting here, keeping an eye on a convicted killer. Potentially defending him against others," he shook his head. "If I had my way I'd throw him out onto the street and let him fend for himself."

"You don't mean that."

"Don't I?"

Zaf leant back against the wall and folded his arms. "In 1987 that man set out to blow up innocent civilians, and yet here we are, potentially risking our lives to keep him alive."

"That's the job we signed up for!"

Zaf muttered something beneath his breath and pushed away from the wall again. "I don't like this sitting here whilst he lords it over us."

"It's not been like that," Jo replied. "He's been pretty quiet."

Zaf shot her a look that told her that he didn't quite believe what she was saying.

"I'm just pleased that he turned in before I got here."

"He's been winding Ros up," Jo confessed with a slight smile on her face, remembering the look of displeasure on her colleague's face. "I'm sure she'll find a way of blaming you for it tomorrow. You were a little late in getting here."

"Some maniac of a publisher was threatening to blow my head off. I'd say that was reason enough to be late." Zaf regarded Jo for a moment. "Don't tell me that you like O'Dowd?"

Jo thought about it for a moment. "I wouldn't say that I liked him, but there is something about him ... I can't explain what it is. He's not at all like I expected him to be."

"I'm sure Fraser Matthews would be very interested to hear that!"

"That's not fair," Jo shot back, with more than a trace of annoyance in her tone.

"Isn't it?" Zaf countered. "I get the feeling that you're in danger of forgetting exactly who he is. Don't let him get to you."

"Don't worry, I won't."

Jo looked across at Zaf as he took a seat at the table. She knew that his words were well intentioned, but she couldn't shake the feeling that he thought she wasn't acting in a completely professional manner.

"Are you saying that you don't think I'm up to the job?"

Zaf rubbed a hand across his eyes. "It's not that; it's just that we don't really know what O'Dowd is capable of. Actually, come to think of it, do we really know what Ros is capable of?"

Jo frowned. "What do you mean?"

Zaf sat back in his chair and stretched out, yawning widely. "You know that O'Dowd's planning a book?" Zaf paused and waited for the acknowledgement from Jo before continuing. "Well Burrows implied that I was at Waterhouse to do Ros' dirty work. What if he was right about her..." he let the sentence hang in the air.

Jo shot him a look. "You don't seriously think that ..."

"I don't know," Zaf cut across her answer before she could finish. "I don't know. I'm just saying that's all."

Jo shook her head. "You don't seriously think that she'd do something like that?"

Zaf shrugged. "We barely know her. Besides, Malcolm said that she took off from the Grid this afternoon. Turned off her phone and disappeared off the radar for a couple of hours."

"That doesn't prove anything," Jo pointed out. "You've taken your fair share of afternoons off."

"True," Zaf had to concede the point. "I guess it's just symptomatic of things. I mean, how well do we actually know the people we work with? For that matter, how many of your neighbours do you actually know? When I was a child I knew the name of practically all the families in the street ... Today, I couldn't tell you the name of the person who lived opposite."

Jo smiled wryly. "I know what you mean. But that anonymity is to our advantage here. At least in this road there are no curtain twitchers; no-one out there spying on our every move. We could probably drive a tank down the street and no-one would say anything."

"Unless you parked in their spot!" Zaf muttered.

"Exactly. They're all safely cocooned in their own little worlds and no-one is really interested in what's going on outside. It's safer that way."

Zaf grinned. "You think that's why Ros is the way she is?"

"No," Jo replied flatly. "I just think she's a heartless bitch!"

* * *

The other houses on the street were silent; their occupants asleep, waiting for the start of a new day. The only lights shining out into the night were from the safe house; light seeping around the edges of the curtains and spilling out into the garden.

Across the road, illuminated only by the flickering light from a television set, a man sat, listening intently on a pair of headphones to the conversation that was taking place. A slight smile spread across his features as he heard the words that were spoken. There was no longer a need to make the curtains twitch; no longer a need to draw attention to the fact that you were showing an interest in the goings on of another house on the street. There were sophisticated listening devices and they provided all that anyone could possibly want to know.

* * *

Harry frowned and opened his eyes as the phone on his bedside table continued to ring. He glared at the small device and wondered just when he'd become such a slave to it.

Sighing heavily he accepted the call and bought the phone to his ear.

"What is it?"

"You and I need to have a little chat."

Harry closed his eyes as he recognised the smooth tones of Oliver Mace.

"Harry?"

Slowly, Harry opened his eyes again and looked at the time displayed on his alarm clock.

"Oliver, it is nearly four in the morning. Would it be too much to ask you to restrict your calls to normal working hours?"

"This isn't a normal situation Harry. We really do need to talk."

Harry rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. "Just where do you propose we meet?"

"Well, as soon as you get around to answering your front door, I'd suggest that your living room was as good a place as any."

Without saying anything further, Harry broke the connection and threw back the covers.


	9. Chapter 9

"I-spy with my little eye ...."

"Zaf ... shut up!"

Zaf sighed and let the edge of the curtain drop before moving a pace away from the window. "Come on," he encouraged. "We've got to do something to pass the time."

"I'm not watching the football with you, and I'm certainly not engaging in a game of I-spy!" Jo told him matter of factly.

"Come on," he told her as he took a seat on the sofa next to her. "Have you never secretly smiled when one of your relatives wants to play that game now?"

He watched and saw the way that Jo's cheeks flushed with embarrassment.

"Guilty!" he clapped his hands in amusement. "When was it?"

Jo shook her head slowly at her colleague's obvious delight.

"Come on, I'm not letting you get away with it."

Jo held her hands up in mock surrender. "Ok, Ok. If it'll shut you up I'll tell you." She shook her head as she felt a wave of embarrassment wash over her again. "It was last Christmas with my friend's daughter. I'd just been spinning a story about the magazine that I tell them I work on, and her daughter Molly came in demanding that I play I-spy."

"And did you have to play?"

"No! My friend told her daughter that I was rubbish at it!" Jo smiled at the memory. "I didn't know whether to be relieved or insulted."

Zaf smiled at the thought. "There are so many things we have to lie about, and so many people that we have to lie to. Do you ever get tired of it?"

Jo gave the question some thought. "Sometimes," she finally conceded. "But I have to keep reminding myself that it's for the greater good."

Zaf's eyes drifted towards the closed bedroom door. "There are times when I feel as though we're miles away from the greater good."

He heard the sigh from Jo, and sought to change the subject. "Have you ever noticed that the rubbish bins are always empty when we get into work in the morning?"

Jo rubbed a hand across her tired eyes. "What about it?"

Zaf leant forward and clasped his hands together. "Haven't you ever thought about who it is who empties them?"

Jo let out a short laugh. "You're not serious?"

"Deadly. Think about it. We leave the Grid at a late hour, but the bin is always empty by the time we come back in. Think about it. Have you ever seen anyone empty the bins?"

Reluctantly Jo shook her head. "I can't say that I have," she told him slowly.

Zaf clapped his hands together. "See, there is something odd about it. Where do you think that they get the cleaners from anyway? It's not as though it's a job you can advertise in the local press. Wanted; cleaner for MI5 – must be willing to work all hours and not look at anything, or read anything you see. Blabbermouths need not apply."

Jo laughed quietly. "You worry about the oddest things."

"Someone must hire them though," Zaf persisted with his idea. "I bet Malcolm knows who they are."

"Maybe Malcolm hires them," Jo suggested with a grin.

Zaf shook his head. "I can't see Malcolm getting his hands dirty with domestic matters."

Jo raised an eyebrow. "I was joking. I didn't think you'd take everything so seriously."

"This is a serious issue," Zaf protested. "I mean our rubbish has to go somewhere... and it can't just be anywhere. There has to be somewhere where the contents of the bins are checked..."

"...Somewhere where they remove all traces of our DNA from the used teabags and sort through the coffee dregs to make sure there are no nail clippings there!"

Zaf shook his head. "You may mock, but I'm raising a serious issue here. How many times have we used the cover of a cleaner to gain entry to a building and move about undetected? Makes you wonder who we have clearing up after us."

"Maybe it's what happens to you when you push Harry too far," Jo suggested. "You come in the door one day and the only place you can get access to is the cleaning cupboard." She stretched in her chair. "I've got the impression recently that Ruth would never end up on cleaning detail though."

Zaf rose to his feet and headed towards the kitchen. "Whatever does or doesn't go on there has nothing to do with us," he called back over his shoulder.

"But aren't you even the tiniest bit interested?"

"No. As long as neither of them comes skipping into the office and acting as though they should belong in some 1970's sitcom, then what they do or don't do is entirely up to them."

Jo sat back in her chair. "You're no fun."

"And you're in danger of turning into a gossip," Zaf told her as he returned with some of the left over curry cartons.

Jo wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You're not eating that cold?"

"What's wrong with that? Anyway I thought you would complain more if I nuked it and then woke laughing boy up with the smell." He dipped a piece of naan into the remains of a chicken madras. "I would have thought that you'd appreciate the quiet."

Jo did her best to ignore him and glanced up at the clock on the wall.

"Malcolm should have checked in by now," she frowned. "He's usually Mr Punctual."

Zaf shrugged. "Maybe he's got better things to do then babysit us." He smiled as a thought struck him. "Maybe we've upset him with our talk of him hiring the cleaners. There are times I forget that he's probably listening in to all of this."

* * *

Malcolm dialled the number again and frowned when no connection was made.

He rolled his chair over to his computer and nudged the machine back into life. Selecting the tab he wanted from the dock, he bought up the output from the cameras that he'd planted. Flicking through the angles he was relieved to see an image of Jo and Zaf seated in the living room and another of O'Dowd apparently asleep in one of the bedrooms.

Moving away from the tab, he bought up a second screen and attempted to find out what was going on with the phones. There had to be some reason he couldn't contact the house.

After a few moments of tapping on the keyboard, the frown deepened. His hand reached for the phone again and paused. Weighing up the situation in his mind, he finally moved his hand away from the receiver and returned his attention to the keyboard. There were a couple more things he wanted to check before raising the alarm.

* * *

Across the road from the safe house, frightened eyes watched as the intruder hastily switched off a small device. From his position on the kitchen floor, the homeowner had only a limited field of vision, but he could watch the intruder as he sat waiting ...watching the house opposite. The man closed his eyes as the pain flared again at the back of his head. He wanted to move; to check out the area where he'd been struck, but the rope that was tied around his wrists and ankles made movement impossible. He could do nothing but lie there; lie there and hope that the whispered promise that he would be released unharmed when the intruder had finished, was a promise that would be kept.

* * *

Harry took a mouthful of coffee and inhaled the strong flavour, hoping that the aroma would do something to help him wake up.

"What is it that was so important that it couldn't wait until morning?" he yawned; wishing not for the first time that he'd never answered Mace's call.

Mace pursed his lips at Harry's dishevelled state. "Martin O'Dowd."

"Ahh."

"As you know, I am aware of your team's involvement in this matter..."

"It must get tiresome for you...knowing so much," Harry told Mace with no trace of humour in his voice. If there was one thing worse than being woken up in the early hours of the morning by a colleague you didn't entirely trust; it was being woken up in the early hours of the morning by that colleague dressed in a pristine suit.

Harry tugged self-consciously at the sleeves of his dressing gown. "I presume you are here to tell me something other than the fact you know my team are with O'Dowd because, trust me, I don't take kindly to be woken at this hour for trivialities."

Mace glared at Harry. "I have reason to believe that your team are in trouble."

Harry was immediately on alert.

"What have you heard?"

Mace turned his own mug of coffee in his hands, blowing on the piping hot liquid. "There's nothing concrete, but it looks as though the word is out. I'd move your people if I were you."

Harry pursed his lips. "I need something a little more concrete than you telling me that 'the word is out' Oliver; you are beginning to sound like a cheap B movie."

"Apologies, but there are some sources that I'm not at liberty to reveal."

"So why are you here?"

Mace smiled thinly. "Believe it or not, I don't think that O'Dowd is worth dying for. I don't think that your people are a price that we should pay."

Harry was on full alert. "What have you heard Oliver?"

"You know about the book?"

"Well of course we know about the book!"

"And its contents?"

Harry sighed heavily. "If you're simply here on a fishing trip Oliver, may I suggest that you come back at a more convenient hour."

Mace held Harry's gaze for a few moments, trying to work out if he was bluffing or not.

"Word is out Harry; there are several people who don't wish to see their names in print. Some of O'Dowd's former associates have fallen far from the tree and don't wish to be linked back to a one-time bomb maker."

Harry held up his hands. "This is all very interesting Oliver; but something that we worked out hours ago...." he tailed off as Mace motioned for him to be quiet.

"This goes high up Harry. There are people who have a long way to fall and they're not prepared for that to happen."

"Do these people have names?"

"I'm not here to point the finger, just here to warn you."

"So you arrive on my doorstep with vague threats of 'Here be Dragons' and then ride off into the night and expect me to do what... lead you straight to O'Dowd?" Harry made little effort to hide his frustration. "After all this time don't try and convince me that you have a conscience."

Mace remained silent for a few moments.

"Burrows is dead."

"Now you're just trying to cheer me up," Harry replied smoothly.

"I'm serious Harry. This is in danger of getting out of hand."

Harry held Mace's gaze for a few moments

"I suppose there's no point in me asking how you came across that particular piece of information?"

"None at all."

Harry shook his head. "You and I both know that there's political manoeuvring afoot here." He frowned. "Exactly how are you mixed up in all this Oliver?"

Mace shook his head. "You don't need to worry about that. But take my advice, get your people out of there. There are other safe houses in the city Harry, use one of them."

Harry opened his mouth to complain about Mace's cryptic warnings but the ringing of his phone broke the silence first. He stared at the offending handset with barely contained frustration. He hadn't even realised that he had bought the phone downstairs with him.

"You might want to get that," Mace suggested, as the phone continued its persistent ringing. "And you might want to get one of your team to change that ringtone!"

Harry shot a warning look in Mace's direction before reaching for the handset.

"This had better be important," he growled.

"I think we may have a little trouble," Malcolm's voice reached his ear.

Pushing aside the desire to ask Malcolm what he was still doing on the Grid in the early hours of the morning, Harry instead concentrated on the matter in hand.

"What's up?"

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"Malcolm, I presume that there is a good reason for calling me at this hour? I hope for your sake that there is."

"I'm getting interference on the feeds from the safe house," Malcolm admitted. "I need someone to take a look around inside and make sure that it isn't just caused by someone putting a device too close to the microwave."

Harry turned his back on Mace and headed out of the room; this was one conversation that he didn't want overheard.

"I'll take care of it," he told Malcolm briskly.

"You will?" There was more than a note of disbelief in the tone.

"I will," Harry confirmed.

There was another long pause on the end of the line and Harry sighed impatiently.

"You just have to tell me what to check Malcolm; I'm not a complete technophobe."

Harry had a sudden flashback of having to ring Malcolm the last time that he'd updated his sound system, and hoped that the same images were not flashing through Malcolm's memory. He decided it was better not to give Malcolm too long to think about it.

"I need to pay a visit to the house myself Malcolm. I'll take care of it."

Harry waited for Malcolm to explain exactly what needed checking before breaking the connection.

He paced back into the living room to find that Mace had vanished; only a half-empty mug of coffee slowly cooling on the table showed that he had been there at all.

Harry swore softly beneath his breath. There had been more information that he needed to get from Mace; it looked as though that would have to wait. He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece; it was imperative to get to the safe house as soon as possible. The only thing to consider now, was how best to get there without arousing interest.

* * *

Harry sat in the back of the car and considered his plan, whilst the engine of the car idled. Mace's visit had been unexpected, and if he was honest with himself, it was something that made him uneasy. Despite assurances in the past that they were on the same side, Harry always had the impression that Mace had an agenda of his own. He wasn't prepared to trust the man completely. He had to play things carefully.

He reached into his jacket and pulled his phone out of his inside pocket, immediately selecting one of the speed dial options. The phone was answered on the fourth ring. The voice on the other end of the line was sleep-filled and slightly hesitant.

"Ruth, I have a favour to ask." Harry paused, waiting for some kind of reply from the other end of the phone. "Ruth?"

"...Sorry Harry. I just...I just wasn't... expecting your call."

"Well this is something of an emergency," Harry admitted.

"And you called me?"

Harry hesitated, trying to think of the best way to phrase the sentence. "I need to see O'Dowd...and I need a lift."

"You need a lift?"

"Yes."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "And there are no pool cars available?"

Harry winced. "None that wouldn't draw the attention of anyone watching the building. I need something inconspicuous."

"Something small and boring?" she paraphrased for him.

Harry heard the tone of hurt in her voice.

"There's nothing wrong with your choice of car," he assured her. "In fact it's perfect... Ruth?"

He heard her let out a long sigh. "How long till you get here?"

"About two minutes," he confessed. "I'm at the end of the road."

"That's a tad presumptuous!" she told him tartly.

"I thought it best to avoid wasting time."

"And if I'd said no, you were going to hotwire it anyway?"

Harry thought it best not to try and answer the question.

"I want you to drive to Culmington Road, and I'll meet you at the side entrance to Walpole Park."

There was another pause on the end of the line.

"Is that a car engine I can hear?"

Harry took a deep breath. "Ruth please, this is important."

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Harry heard her grumble before breaking the connection.

* * *

Jo yawned and stretched out in her chair. Her eyes were beginning to burn with tiredness, and she wanted nothing more than to get her head down for a few hours. The house was silent aside from the relentless drumming of the rain upon the windows, and Jo found that the sound was starting to lull her asleep. She sat forward and rubbed at her eyes; the next shift had to be due within minutes. She was certain that she could last that long without dropping off. She glanced in Zaf's direction; he was seemingly absorbed in a book, showing no signs of the fatigue that was starting to get to her.

She reached forward and picked up one of the remaining biscuits from the plate in front of her. She raised it towards her mouth but stopped halfway and looked at the biscuit again. Letting out a long sigh she pulled a face and let the biscuit fall to the plate again.

"Why does no-one ever pick up fruit or carrot sticks for one of these operations?" she complained. "No-one can blame me if my gym is the first place that realises what I do for a living. I have to spend weeks there to repair the damage caused by a few days in a safe house."

Zaf smiled and lowered the book. "What you need is a better metabolism."

"What I need is not to be surrounded by unhealthy food when I've got no chance of getting out to stretch my legs."

"Well there's a distraction for you," Zaf noted as he glanced out of the window to see Adam and Ros approaching the building. "You can go and open the door."

"Ever the chivalrous gentleman," she retorted sarcastically, pushing herself out of the chair just as the doorbell sounded.

She was halfway across the room when O'Dowd appeared in the doorway of his room.

"What's going on?" his voice was sleep-filled, his hair sticking out at all angles.

"Get back in your box," Zaf told him coldly. "It's just the shift change. Nothing for you to worry yourself about."

Jo glanced through the peep hole, confirming that it was indeed Adam and Ros on the other side of the door, sheltering from the rain as best they could beneath the narrow overhang. Satisfied that they were alone, she drew back the chain and undid the locks on the door, before letting them in.

"Malcolm's really getting into his organisational role," Adam announced as he shook the rain from his jacket and entered the hallway, passing a bag full of warm croissants to Jo. "He's given our shifts their own names. You two are Fred and Ginger, Ros and I are Bogart and Bacall."

"What about Harry and Ruth?" Zaf called from the other room. "After all they did do a shift yesterday."

"What about Tracy and Hepburn?" Jo suggested with a smile as she waited for Ros to make her way in, trying to ignore the enticing warm bread smell from the bag in her hand.

"Did you hear something?" Ros queried, turning on her heel to glance back at the street.

Jo stepped round the door and glanced down the pathway. "I can't see anything. Must have been one of the local cats. Place is teeming with them."

Ros shook her head. "I'm sure there was something." She scanned the pathway behind her and caught sight of the light glinting off of something metallic in the bushes.

"Get down," Ros yelled at Jo as she dived for the safety of the hallway.

"What?" Jo was slow to react to Ros' instruction; her own eyes scanning the garden, trying to work out what it was that her colleague had seen.

The sound of the shot when it came reverberated off of the building; echoing and causing the ground floor sash windows to rattle in their casements.


	10. Chapter 10

Ros' heart was pounding as she threw herself onto the hard tiled floor of the hallway; trying to make sure that she was away from the angle of fire of the shooter. There was no way of knowing if that first shot was going to be the only one, or the first of a concerted attack.

Having reached the relative safety of the hallway, she turned back to check where Jo was. The younger officer was leant against the wall, a look of faint surprise on her face, a dark red stain forming just above the waistband of her jeans.

"Oh shit," Ros breathed, scrambling to her knees and drawing her gun from its holster. Pressing herself against the wall, she edged forward, trying to work out where the shooter was. She had seen the telltale sign of a gun barrel glinting only moments earlier, but there was no way of being certain that that was where the shot had come from. For all she knew there could be an army of armed men out there, all waiting for their chance to take a pot shot at O'Dowd.

"Jo," she hissed at her obviously shocked colleague. "Back inside. Come on Jo, I need you to move this way."

There was the sound of hurried footsteps behind her as Adam arrived to check out what was going on. She didn't bother turning around to acknowledge him, but told him as quickly as she could what was going on.

"I need you to be ready to give covering fire if needed whilst I get the door closed," she told him.

"Got it," Adam acknowledged.

Ros edged closer to the door, using the wall as cover as best as she could. Jo was still leant back against the wall, seemingly unable to move; oblivious to the drops of rain that were now falling upon her through the open door.

"Come on," Ros hissed at her again. "Are you looking to make yourself a target? Get back in here."

"Down," Adam ordered as he spotted movement ahead of him.

Ros reached forward and grabbed hold of Jo's arm, pulling her towards the floor as Adam fired a shot at the figure that was emerging from the bushes. Two rounds were fired in reply in quick succession and slammed into the doorframe where Jo had been standing only moments earlier. Ros felt the blast from the shot and forced herself to keep moving as splinters of wood cascaded around her head.

As she crouched, pulling Jo away from the doorway, she kicked back with her foot, catching the open door and slamming it shut.

"That's not going to hold them for long," she warned Adam as he reached forward helping her to her feet.

"Get to Zaf and O'Dowd, see if Zaf can get an angle on the shooter and then check out the exits. If we're lucky then they won't have them covered."

"Since when did you start believing in blind luck?" Ros called back over her shoulder as she raced down the hallway and into the living room.

Adam ignored the question and turned his attention to Jo. Her breathing was coming in shallow, fast gasps.

"Come on," he encouraged her, "We've got to get you away from here."

"I've....I've..." she struggled to find the words, her face paling and her eyes widening further.

"Jo...There's no time for this Jo," Adam urged. "We have to get out of here."

"No angle on the shooter," Zaf's voice reached him from the next room.

"What's going on?" O'Dowd's voice joined the noise level that was building from the next room.

"Just shut up and get down on the floor as I told you," Adam listened to Zaf barking orders at O'Dowd.

He turned his attention back to Jo. She was starting to shake as shock set in; her hands trembling as they reached to explore the area of the wound.

"Let me take a look," he told her gently, hoping that he could leave everything else to Zaf and Ros. He moved Jo's hands out of the way and carefully lifted the bottom of the blouse she was wearing.

"It normally takes more than one date to get this far," she attempted to joke.

Adam looked at the wound. From what he could see the injury wasn't a deep one; the bullet nicking the surface of the stomach as it passed by.

"It's ok," he told her. "You're going to be fine."

She smiled weakly. "You'd say that anyway."

"Come on; let's get you into the back of the house." Adam slipped an arm around Jo's shoulder and helped her to her feet, trying to ignore the whimper of pain she gave as she moved.

"What the hell is going on?" O'Dowd demanded to know, his voice shrill as he struggled to keep a lid on his own panic.

"Just shut up and keep your head down," Zaf told him firmly as the door to the room opened and Adam entered, supporting Jo as best as he could.

"Oh my God!" O'Dowd's face paled as he took in the sight of the two officers. "I'm getting out of here."

Adam manoeuvred Jo onto the sofa as gently as he could before turning his attention towards O'Dowd who was scrambling to his feet and heading for the door.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" he demanded to know as he grabbed hold of the front of O'Dowd's shirt and pushed him up against the wall.

"Get off me," O'Dowd struggled to free himself from Adam's grip but Adam simply pushed him harder against the wall.

"You're not going anywhere," Adam shouted in his face. "You've got one of my team shot, I'm not about to let you get one of us killed." O'Dowd stopped struggling, but Adam's hold on the shirt didn't relent. "You could have gotten her killed. Do you understand that? Does that piece of information register in what you laughingly call your brain? Believe me when I say that nothing would give me more pleasure right now that throwing you out onto that street and just letting them do what they want,' he paused and pushed his face closer to O'Dowd's. "In fact, why don't I just do that? I think that would solve all our problems."

Without warning, Adam pulled O'Dowd away from the wall and pushed him towards the door.

"Adam," Zaf's voice carried with it a note of concern.

"No, no," Adam countered. "Big man here said that he wanted to be out of here."Adam pushed him out into the hallway. "I'm just giving him what he wants."

"Adam, you can't," Zaf tried again to persuade his colleague to stop what he was doing.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't?"

Zaf placed a hand on Adam's shoulder. "Let him go."

Adam pushed O'Dowd against the wall.

"What...so he can succeed in getting one of us killed? He's not worth dying for Zaf."

"Adam, we need to find a way out of here. Getting yourself and O'Dowd shot is not going to help Jo."

Adam paused and Zaf tried to press home his point. "Jo needs us Adam; we don't have time for this."

Zaf stared at his colleague; silently urging him to realise what he was doing.

"I can't see anyone out the back," Ros appeared in the hallway and looked disdainfully at the scene unfolding in front of her. "I can't imagine that we'd all get out that way before someone decides to open up with the pot shots again. When the three of you have finished beating your chests and established who the hairy alpha-male in the group is, do you think we could turn our attention to getting out of here alive?"

Adam let go of the hold he had on O'Dowd's shirt, and the man made a show of straightening up.

Adam kept his gaze locked on O'Dowd, daring him to say anything. "What's the word from the Grid?"

"All I can get is static," Ros told him calmly. "My guess is that our friendly neighbourhood shooter is blocking the signal somehow."

Zaf pulled his phone from the back pocket of his jeans and checked for a signal. "Nothing here either. I can't imagine that the local brigade of curtain twitchers is just going to sit there. Someone's going to be on the phone to the police."

"So we have to get him out of here before that happens," Ros continued the thought. "If you can keep them busy out the front, I'll take Prince Charming here out the back way."

"And go where?" Adam questioned, not liking the way that Ros was taking charge of the situation.

"For starters, somewhere where people aren't shooting at us!" Ros looked between her two colleagues. "There are other safe houses in the city. Safe houses that are decidedly safer than this one is right now. The choice is yours…Stay here, or try and make it to somewhere that won't be swarming with police and the media within the next 15 minutes."

"I vote for getting out of here," O'Dowd chipped in.

"There's Jo to consider," Adam reminded her.

"If she's not well enough to move, we leave her here," Ros stated matter of factly.

Adam shook his head. "I'm not leaving anyone behind."

"Very noble of you I'm sure," Ros replied coolly. "But I don't think your nobility alone is going to be enough to keep us alive."

Adam did his best to ignore the jibe and continued. "At the moment it looks as though our shooter is still at the front of the property. Go with Zaf and get O'Dowd out the back of the house and into the garden. There should be a fairly easy route across the back gardens. I'll try and keep him busy here. I'll give you a couple of minutes and then follow you with Jo."

Ros shook her head slowly. "She's gonna slow you down, There's no reason to think that he'll come through the property."

"...And less reason to care?" Adam's tone was hard.

Ros shrugged her shoulders. "Take it any way that you want. I just think that you're wasting valuable time."

"Duly noted," Adam told her curtly. "But at the end of the day, it's my decision and I've made it."

Without another word Ros turned and headed towards the back door. Zaf exchanged a quick look with Adam, before grabbing hold of O'Dowd's collar and hauling him towards the door.

"When I say run, run. When I say get down, get down," he barked.

"And when you say 'whoops'... what happens then?"

"I lose my bonus but gain the thanks of a grateful nation," Zaf growled and tried to persuade the reluctant O'Dowd to move faster.

* * *

Harry heard the grinding of the gearbox as Ruth failed once again to find the correct gear. Ever since she had picked him up, she appeared to have been struggling with the gears. "Are you alright?' he queried.

Ruth wrenched at the gear stick until it finally settled into place.

"It's your fault," she grumbled beneath her breath. "You're making me nervous."

The corners of Harry's mouth twitched. "I'm making you nervous?"

"It's like being in a car with a driving examiner," she told him honestly. "I get the feeling that you're watching every move that I make..." she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye before adding, "...and judging me."

"I am doing no such thing."

"So why do you keep tutting every time that I do anything."

"I do not," Harry protested, aware that he wasn't the best of passengers.

"Oh yes you do. It's that or drawing your breath in over your teeth. I **can** hear you, you know."

"I'm sorry," he apologised. "I guess I'm just a little on edge."

"And that's a feeling you feel as though you want to share?"

"I said I was sorry."

Ruth turned her full attention back to the road. "And you can stop looking at where I have my hands on the wheel as well," she added. "I understand now why your drivers all prefer it when you sit in the back!"

Harry opened his mouth to say something but then thought better of it. It was one of Ruth's natural skills – the ability to cultivate contacts in the most unlikely of places. He wasn't sure that he was entirely happy with the idea that she spent her time chatting with his drivers about him and his manners as a passenger, but he was determined not to interfere. He folded his arms and sat back in the seat.

"And will you stop looking at the speedometer!"

* * *

Ros pulled open the back door to the house and scanned the area quickly, looking for any signs of movement. Satisfied that she had a clear exit to the nearest piece of cover, she darted forward.

Upon reaching the side of the shed, she crouched down, using the wall and the bushes in front of her to disguise her position. After a few moments, she beckoned Zaf forward, covering his and O'Dowd's movement as best as she could; sweeping the area with the barrel of her handgun, looking for the slightest movement that didn't belong.

As the pair of them reached her side, she pushed O'Dowd towards the ground.

"If you want to keep your head; I suggest you keep it down," she hissed at him.

"You're concern for my well-being is touching," he told her as he struggled to maintain his balance.

"Another death on my record is something I can do without," she replied bluntly. "They always feel the need to bring petty things like that up when you're angling for a pay rise."

"At least you're not like suicide boy back in there," he remarked. "What is his problem?"

"Watching his colleagues get shot whilst trying to protect a worthless piece of shit like you doesn't do much for his general demeanour," Ros told him flatly, her eyes darting to the back door as it opened again, and Adam appeared on the threshold; supporting Jo at his side. Ros swore beneath her breath, and motioned to Zaf to get ready to provide covering fire should it be needed. The last thing they needed when trying to get away from potential pursuers was dead weight, and it looked as though Adam was about to insist that they bring Jo with them. She shook her head; her new colleagues had a lot to learn about survival.

* * *

Harry felt the gentle vibration of his phone and reached into his pocket. "What is it Malcolm?" he queried, knowing full well who was most likely to be calling him.

"Harry, we have a situation at the safe house," Malcolm announced calmly.

"What sort of a situation?"

"I've lost contact with them. There's no reply from any of the communication devices." There was a pause. "On a sliding scale it's beyond incredibly unlikely that everything has packed up at once."

"Right. I'm nearly at the safe house now. I'll update you as soon as I hear anything."

Harry ended the call and placed the phone back into the pocket of his coat.

"Ruth," his voice was firm and calm. "I need you to put your foot down."

Ruth frowned and glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "It's a thirty mile an hour area," she pointed out. "And contrary to what you might think, I am doing thirty."

"Ruth, when I say, I want you to put your foot down and turn right at the end of the road."

"What?" Ruth failed to understand what Harry was getting at. "Have you got any idea of the number of speed cameras in the area? This is my car remember. I'm the one who's liable for the fines."

"I'll take care of the fines," Harry assured her, his tone still even.

Ruth risked a quick glance in his direction. "You can actually do that?"

"Eyes on the road Ruth," Harry advised as he shifted in his seat, reaching into his jacket and pulling a handgun from its holster.

The car swerved across the road as Ruth realised what he was doing. "What are you doing in my car with that thing?" she demanded to know, hurriedly returning her attention to the road and straightening the car up.

"Saving our lives if I get it right," Harry told her matter of factly.

"What!" The car swerved again and Harry had to reach out with a hand to steady the steering wheel.

"I need you to concentrate," Harry explained as he checked the readiness of the handgun.

"Would you mind telling me what you are doing in my car with that thing? For that matter, what are **you** doing with that thing?"

"Ruth, there really isn't the time to explain."

"Find the time or I stop the car," Ruth warned.

"Ruth!" Harry's voice took on a sharper edge. "Drive. Drive fast."

Ruth glanced at Harry out of the corner of her eye to make sure that he was serious. Her hands suddenly became slick with sweat and her heart rate rocketed. Harry wasn't kidding. There was something serious going on and she was in the driving seat.

She let out what she hoped would be a steadying breath. "Where are we going?"

"End of the road and then right."

"I was thinking more in the terms of final destination," she protested, as she dutifully shifted up through the gears as the car picked up pace.

"Trust me," Harry told her as he reached out to the dashboard for support. "I know exactly where we're going."

* * *

Malcolm frowned as he watched Harry's tracker rocket across the screen. His right hand reached for the phone, hesitating for a moment before lifting the receiver from its cradle.

"What?" Harry's voice snapped on the third ring of the phone.

"I thought you ought to know...you've got a tail." Malcolm scrolled through the information that was coming through on the screen in front of him. "ANPR has identified a vehicle that has been behind you for the past fifteen minutes. It didn't concern me until it started to show an equal disregard for the speed limit of her majesty's highways."

"Have you got any more details on the vehicle?"

"It's a black Mitsubishi Shogun, registration..."

"I see it," Harry interrupted the description. It seems as though the driver has decided to abandon any form of covert tailing."

"Do you want back up?"

"Well it would be preferable to meeting my end in a small blue Seat Leon!"

"There's nothing wrong with my car!" Malcolm heard Ruth's voice complain and smiled despite himself.

"I'll see if I can't persuade the local constabulary that stopping the Shogun would be a good idea."

"I appreciate it," Harry told him and broke the connection before turning his attention back to Ruth. "We need to get out of here."

"You say that like its news!" she told him bluntly, glancing in the rear view mirror and noting the way that the black Shogun was closing in on them.

"Where now?" Ruth's voice cracked and Harry knew that she was close to panic.

"Deep breaths," he told her. "We'll be fine."

"Fine," her voice ratcheted up another octave. "Have you any idea of the scores I was awarded on my driving course?"

"Unfortunately yes," Harry told her honestly. "You're lucky I'm such a good passenger. Now at the end of the road it's a left."

Ruth took the corner at speed, the tyres squealing as the rear end of the car slid out.

Harry pushed himself away from where he'd been thrown against the passenger door. "I may have to ask to have your scores reviewed."

"You think I'm improving?"

"No!"

Ruth let out a harrumph of annoyance.

"Well I saw your driving scores..." she told him tartly as she sped through a narrowing gap between two busses. "...and I have to tell you that they weren't that special."

Harry's eyes widened; partly in fear, and partly in surprise. If she had managed to get her hands on his personnel file somehow then he wanted to know about it. He tried to push the thought to one side. Now was not the time to dwell on it. He glanced at Ruth as the car began to slow. "What's wrong?" He took in the road ahead. "Tell me that you're not slowing for the zebra crossing?"

"No, I'm not bloody slowing for the zebra crossing. I'm waiting for you to tell me where we're going next!"

Harry glanced quickly down at the A-Z on his lap, to double check his bearings. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Ruth and knew that the Shogun was back behind them.

His mind was buzzing, trying to work out where the tail had come from. There was one obvious answer to the question and it wasn't one that sat comfortably on his shoulders. Mace had been the only one who could have led someone to his house. He'd not filed any paperwork on his proposed visit to the safe house. If someone was following him, then the chances were that they had picked him up from his home. He pushed aside the immediate feelings of guilt. He was not going to be responsible for putting Ruth in danger. He glanced back over his shoulder, trying to see if there was the tell-tale silhouette of a firearm visible.


	11. Chapter 11

Ruth gripped the steering wheel tightly and tried not to concentrate too hard on what she was doing. The more she concentrated on driving, the more convinced she was that she'd make a mistake. The best thing was just to get on with it, and then worry about it later ... assuming there was going to be a later in which to worry about it.

She glanced in the rear view mirror again, and immediately wished that she hadn't. The black Shogun was still there, and was showing precious little sign of backing off.

She wanted to ask Harry who it was behind them; but the stoic look on his face was enough to tell her that now was not the time for questions. Her mind rattled back through the years, and she couldn't recall ever seeing Harry armed before. She'd known that he'd more than likely have access to a gun, but it just wasn't an image that sat comfortably in her head. If things had come to a point where Harry felt the need to arm himself, then they were involved in something darker than usual.

"Step it up," Harry told her firmly and, feeling a twinge of guilt at the cyclist she was about to drench, Ruth pushed her foot to the floor and sped through the deep puddle that had formed at the side of the road.

They were approaching a busy junction and the lights were still showing in her favour. Years of driving in the city had taught her that the lights were not likely to remain so benevolent. She fought against the urge to slow the car and instead concentrated on the road ahead.

Sure enough as she drew closer to the junction, the green light faded and the amber above it took its place.

"I know," she told Harry as she heard him draw breath. "I'm not stopping."

Putting her foot firmly to the floor, Ruth pushed the engine of the small Seat harder, and sped through the junction as the light turned red, swerving to avoid a lorry that had decided to pre-empt the light change. She tried to ignore the squealing brakes and blaring horns that greeted her move and concentrate instead on the road.

"That was a little close," Harry told her quietly as he straightened up.

Ruth glanced in the rear view mirror again, and allowed a small smile of victory to cross her face.

"But I've lost them though," she reported.

Harry turned in his seat and failed to suppress a smile as he saw the chaos that Ruth had caused. The lorry that Ruth had swerved around was now blocking the junction, and the Shogun was stuck somewhere behind it. It looked as though, for the present time at least, they had lost their tail.

* * *

Adam raised his head and peered out through the small gap in the undergrowth, trying to ignore the rain that was dripping heavily from the overhanging trees.

"I think we've lost them."

"Are you taking bets on that?" Zaf wanted to know as he struggled to maintain his balance in the mud.

Ignoring the comment, Adam drew his mobile from his pocket, satisfied to see that he once again had a signal. Whoever had been doing the jamming obviously only had a very localised range. He selected a speed dial option. After a few moments the call was connected.

"What is it?"

"Harry, no time to explain," Adam began. "We need a pick up. The safe house has been compromised."

"Where are you?"

"No idea. We took the short cut across some back gardens; it's a little hard to keep track of the street signs when you're trying to avoid being attacked by someone's dog."

"I'll get Malcolm to track your mobile. I'm in the area, but have a problem of my own at this precise moment in time." There was a pause. "How many of you are there?"

"Party of five."

"We can't take you all," Harry advised. "Prioritise. We'll be there in a couple of minutes."

Harry broke the connection and then hastily redialled again.

"Malcolm, I need a fix on Adam's mobile."

There was a pause and Harry could hear the swift sound of fingers dancing across a keyboard. Moments later and the information he required was relayed. Lowering the phone, Harry checked the A-Z again, before issuing a new set of directions to Ruth.

"When you reach the end of the road I want you to turn left and then stop halfway up the road on the left. I'll let you know exactly where I need you to stop."

"Right."

Harry glanced at Ruth and, despite the situation, found it hard to suppress a smile at the look of pure determination on her face.

As Ruth made the turning, Harry turned his attention to the activity on the street; looking out for likely places where a sniper might be hiding.

"Stop now," he barked and couldn't fail to watch the way that Ruth flinched.

"You should have been a driving instructor," she muttered under her breath.

She turned her head as she heard the back doors of the car opening.

"What the..."

"Don't worry about it," Harry told her. "Just get ready to put your foot down when I give you the word."

Ruth watched in wide-eyed shock as Jo was bundled into the car by Adam. She could see the expression of pain on Jo's face and found it hard to fight the urge to demand to know what was going on.

Without warning there was a loud crack and the rear window shattered into thousands of tiny fragments; square chunks of glass flying through the interior of the car and showering the occupants.

"Get out of here now," Adam yelled as he ducked down in the road next to the rear passenger seat where Jo was sitting.

"Get in the car," Harry ordered.

"Can't leave the others," Adam argued.

"Just get in my bloody car," Ruth yelled at him. "Before someone decides to destroy it completely."

There was the sound of another gunshot and something glanced off of the rear of the vehicle.

"Get in," Harry ordered again.

Adam scrambled into the car, doing his best not to climb all over Jo as he struggled to find space.

"I'm in," he yelled, reaching for the door as Jo tried to move herself out of his way; the tangle of limbs not aided by the chunks of glass that coated the inside of the car.

"Let's get out of here Ruth," Harry told her calmly.

Ruth spared him a quick glance before putting her foot to the floor and moving off as fast as she could.

* * *

Ros peered through the narrow gap in the fence and watched as the small blue car sped away.

"There goes our lift," she whispered back to Zaf. "Looks as though we're on our own."

Zaf glanced toward O'Dowd who was crouched down in the undergrowth next to him.

"Can't we just leave him here?"

"Tempting though that may be; can you imagine the paperwork it would generate? Simpler to get him across town and make him someone else's problem," Ros told him. "The shots at the car seemed to come from over there," she gestured towards the high railings that encircled one of the properties on the opposite side of the road. "I've not seen any other movement from there yet. Chances are that whoever it is is waiting for us to break cover."

"You want me to go round and shake him up?"

"It's either that or we spend the rest of the day camped out in a Wendy House!" Ros replied flatly.

Deciding that it was best not to continue the conversation, Zaf left the small party and made his way slowly along the tree line; looking to scale the wall into the next garden and work his way round to the house on the opposite side of the road. He just hoped that he'd be able to avoid running into another garden containing small yapping dogs. The last one had left a very distinctive set of bite marks on his right ankle.

* * *

The windscreen wipers slapped heavily against the glass as the rain lashed down upon the small car. Questions buzzed through Ruth's head but she forced herself to remain silent and keep all her attention fixed on the road ahead. Adam had said little since they'd picked him up, but it was obvious that he was concerned about Jo's condition.

Ruth had concerns of her own; paramount was the inescapable fact that at that moment she was responsible for the lives of the three other people in the car with her. She'd always liked to think that she wasn't one for dodging responsibility, but right at this present moment, she was willing to trade her current place with almost anyone.

"Left at the end." Harry's voice intruded into her thoughts.

"Left?" she queried.

"Left," Harry confirmed.

"You're sure?"

"Ruth, this isn't a subject that's open for debate. Left at the end of the road." He paused and took in the slight frown that she was now wearing. "You have some particular problem with my navigating?"

"It's not that," she told him as she glanced again in the rear view mirror, checking that they really had thrown off the tail. "It's just...oh no..."

"Oh no?" Harry turned in his seat and caught sight of a familiar looking black 4x4 coming up behind them. "You know the drill." He braced himself, waiting for the feeling of acceleration as Ruth floored the engine. There was nothing. He glanced in her direction and then at the sign they were approaching.

"For heaven's sake Ruth, I'll pay the Congestion Charge fine for you...Now put your foot down."

Ruth scowled, and muttered something beneath her breath as she once again shifted up through the gears.

* * *

Ros shifted her weight from one foot to the other and tried to ignore the fact that she was still crouching in the wet soil of some homeowner's flowerbed. She leant forward and attempted to get a better angle on the street in front of her, but the gap in the wooden fence was too small and only afforded her a very narrow field of vision.

In the distance she could hear the sound of approaching sirens. Someone had obviously reported the sound of gunshots to the emergency services and within minutes the neighbourhood was going to be swamped with armed police. She wanted to be out of the area before that occurred. The police would have the media in tow; and with the proliferation of camcorders and camera phones, the last thing Ros wanted was to become was the front page of the next day's tabloids. The only thing to do was to get O'Dowd out of the area, and then to make contact with Malcolm later.

She was painfully aware of how exposed her current position was. Crouched against a fence in the back garden of someone's property, she knew that there was no-one but O'Dowd watching her back. If the owner of the house was in and chose to look out of their back window, then her cover would be blown and she'd be left with no option but to break cover and head into the unknown.

The sound of the sirens grew louder and Ros heard the breathing of O'Dowd get heavier.

"Shouldn't we be getting out of here?" she heard his voice whisper in her ear.

Doing her best to ignore O'Dowd, Ros peered through the gap again, trying to see if there was any sign of Zaf. The chances were that the shooter had made a run for it at the first sound of the approaching sirens, but she had to be certain before she stepped out.

She caught a glimpse of movement on the periphery of her vision. It was Zaf. He'd made his way along the back of the row of houses opposite, and now appeared to be methodically searching the gardens.

"Come on," she urged, hoping that he'd speed up his search.

The first of the police vans swept into the road; sirens blaring; blue lights strobing across the walls of the houses. Ros took in the rest of the convoy behind it and swore beneath her breath. The chance to take the shooter out themselves was now well and truly gone. He'd be moving out of the area as quickly as he could; something that she knew she also had to do.

The leading van screeched to a halt; the door sliding back and armed police spilling out onto the road – taking up defensive positions where they could. The rest of the vehicles pulled up behind them and more black-clothed, armed officers began to fill the pavement.

"Must be a strong voting community," Ros sneered as she watched the officers milling about.

She knew what their search pattern would be, and realised that her precarious position had just become untenable. Even the most laid back homeowner was going to be on the alert, and the embarrassment of being apprehended by a member of the public was not going to be something that was ever going to be lived down.

She had to get out of the area, and to do that the police were going to have to be busy elsewhere.

Her attention was drawn to the road as she heard the muffled bark of an order from a uniformed officer. As she watched, Zaf stepped out onto the pavement; his arms above his head. She found that she was holding her breath as she watched the actions of the armed response unit. They obviously knew that shots had been fired in the area, and for all they knew they were currently looking directly at the shooter. The safety would be off and the officers given clearance to shoot if it looked as though Zaf presented any degree of threat.

She couldn't make out what he was saying, but she could see that Zaf was trying to engage the officers in conversation. It was going to be a hopeless effort. Still she hoped that Zaf would have the sense to try and draw the police away from her location and give her the chance to get herself and O'Dowd out of there.

Zaf took another pace forward, and even at a distance, Ros heard the unmistakable sound of a weapon being cocked. There were more barked orders and Zaf slowly got down onto his knees; his hands clasped behind his head.

Seemingly satisfied that they had control of the situation, the officers closed in.

Ros watched mutely as Zaf was handcuffed and then bundled roughly into the back of the nearest van; the officers none too careful in their efforts to get him off of the street.

Satisfied that the search wasn't going to progress any further, she turned to face O'Dowd. "Let's get out of here."

He looked at her, disbelief on his face. "Aren't they on our side?" he questioned, indicating the black-clothed officers.

Ros nodded and then pointed to the cars that were starting to converge at the end of the road. "But I think you'll find that they are more interested in you."

* * *

The small Seat screeched to a halt in the ambulance bay and within moments Adam was scrambling from the car, ignoring the protests from the staff who immediately began telling Ruth that she couldn't park the car there.

The black Shogun had let up its pursuit. Harry was still waiting to hear from Malcolm as to who the likely owners were. Harry feared that they had been deemed less important, and that Ros and Zaf would now be on the radar of the vehicle's occupants. Needless worry however, was not going to help them.

He twisted round in his seat and watched impatiently as Adam helped Jo from the back seat.

"As soon as you can I want you back on the Grid. There are people out there shooting at us and I want to know who it is...preferably before they get the opportunity to shoot again."

"Right." Adam helped a very shaky Jo to her feet and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, as her knees buckled. "You'd better get going. We'll be fine from here."

Harry turned back to face Ruth. "Are you ok to get us back?"

Ruth nodded; her fingers still wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, trying to pretend that she hadn't seen the blood staining the back seat of the car.

"I'm fairly certain that we won't be seeing our friends in the Shogun again. So you should be able to complete the journey without breaking the speed limit."

Ruth glanced in the rear view mirror and, despite herself, her eyes were drawn to the state of the back seat. "If anyone tries to stop us, you can explain what happened," she told him as she released the handbrake and moved off.

* * *

"What the hell are you doing?" O'Dowd yelled; his feet bracing on the floor of the estate car.

Ros cast him a cursory glare. "If you stopped panicking and had a little faith, this might be a more pleasant experience for both of us."

She wrenched the wheel hard to the right and the car responded; the back end swinging out wildly as she tried to get it to change direction at high speed.

O'Dowd swore loudly as he was thrown against the passenger door again. "Where the hell did you learn to drive!"

Ros ignored him and tried to concentrate on the road ahead. She was doing her best to get the car away from the more heavily populated areas. The last thing she wanted was to get innocent civilians caught up in an exchange of gunfire.

She glanced in the rear view mirror and saw the now familiar sight of the Shogun closing on her. She cursed beneath her breath and wished that she'd been able to find a car with a better engine. She'd been so eager to get O'Dowd away from the safe house; she'd taken the first car that she'd spotted that wasn't fitted with an alarm. The Peugeot she'd chosen had obviously been driven by someone who thought that the fourth and fifth gears were luxury items that were never to be used, and she'd had to coax the car to get above fifty.

Within minutes of getting into the car, they'd picked up a tail. The occupants of the black 4x4 didn't seem to be interested in keeping a low profile, and had gone out of their way to keep behind Ros. Their brief was obvious. Stop O'Dowd at all costs. If they weren't concerned about being stopped by the police, then Ros reasoned that they were armed, and had no qualms about using the firearms they had.

She tried to work out the best place to head. As soon as she managed to get rid of the tail, then she'd make tracks for one of the other safe houses and make contact with the Grid from there. Entrusting O'Dowd with the phone and asking him to call for her just wasn't a viable option. She kept her eyes on the road ahead and hoped that she'd be able to get away from the trailing vehicle before its occupants became bored with the chase and decided to open fire on them.

O'Dowd yelled something at her again, but she'd tuned him out, knowing that he was unlikely to add anything constructive to the situation, and instead focussed her attention on the road ahead.

A flicker of memory told her that there was a large estate only a mile or so away from her present location. Getting there would give her the opportunity to lose the Shogun, or at least a chance to ditch the vehicle and hide within the maze of high-rises. She pushed the accelerator to the floor and heard the squeal of the engine as she forced it to work harder.


	12. Chapter 12

**_Thanks again to everyone who has reviewed; I do appreciate it :)_**

**_Sorry for the wait, but this should be something to get your teeth into_**

* * *

Harry strode onto the Grid, Ruth close behind him, struggling to keep up with his pace; rainwater dripping from the bottom of her coat.

"Malcolm," Harry's voice broke across the low chatter that filled the room. "I want to know what the hell is going on."

Malcolm was on his feet in seconds, pulling a sheaf of paper from the printer tray and joining the small procession that was heading towards Harry's office.

"Something wiped out our comms net," he explained. "I've tried to get it back up and working but nothing's responding."

"Forget it," Harry told him bluntly as he shrugged out of his coat and threw it across the back of his chair. "The house has been well and truly compromised. I want a cleaning detail over there as soon as is practicable. I want every sign that we were ever there removed, and that includes the blood of one of my officers from the floor of the hallway."

Malcolm's expression immediately became one of concern. "How is Jo?"

"She'll live... no thanks to anyone here. Why the hell wasn't the alarm raised the moment that the first comms problems surfaced?"

"There wasn't time," Malcolm tried to explain. He took in the expression on Harry's face. "We've been... having problems with that particular set up for the past month. It's from a new supplier and some of the bugs haven't been ironed out yet. Last month a safe house was compromised because the occupants panicked when the sensors went off indicating that there were intruders in the garden. Turned out that two very over-amorous foxes were the cause."

"Malcolm," Ruth pulled gently on her colleague's sleeve, trying to get him to be quiet.

"Before that someone took a pot shot at a badger because they....."

"Malcolm," Ruth's tone was more insistent and she gently began ushering him from the room.

"Foxes! ... Badgers!" Harry's face was scarlet with anger.

"The fact of the matter is that Ros, Zaf and O'Dowd are out there," Ruth tried to steer Harry back on course, as she motioned for Malcolm to make his exit. "We need to clean out that house before the press get wind that O'Dowd was there, and we need to find who it was who was tailing us."

Harry stood glaring at the door, watching Malcolm as he made his way back towards his desk. After a few moments he took a deep breath and turned his attention to Ruth.

"I want Adam back here as soon as you can manage it. I want to know everything that the police find out. If the shooter was professional then there's a good chance that he staked the place out for sometime before making his move. I want the gardens and the houses in the road searched thoroughly. I don't want to hear how some plod with his hulking size 10's has ruined vital evidence. The list of people who we think might be after O'Dowd....I want it shortened."

"I'll get onto it," Ruth assured him as she backed out of the office, pulling the door closed behind her.

* * *

Ros looked at the maze of towering blocks, low-rise flats and concrete walkways that stretched out before her. At some point in the 1950's this had apparently looked like the ideal solution to the housing crisis. Ros shook her head; she couldn't imagine that the place had ever looked anything other than bleak and intimidating. The estates' occupants since the late Seventies had apparently been in agreement with her, and its reputation as a crime-ridden warren had become firmly cemented. The local authority had finally decided that enough was enough, and three years ago had announced that it was going to sweep the entire estate away and redevelop the area.

Progress in removing the tenants had been slow, and as far as Ros could tell, no actual attempt had been made to demolish any part of the buildings. She urged the car forward, trying to ignore the warning lights that were now flashing on the dashboard. The engine was over-heating, and the oil level appeared to be non-existent. The fuel gauge had been hovering above the empty mark since she'd first coaxed the engine into life, and she had the sneaking suspicion that they were now running on vapours alone. As if on cue the engine spluttered and Ros slammed her hand against the steering wheel in frustration.

She shot a quick glance in the rear-view mirror and realised with dismay that the Shogun was still on their tail.

"Get your head down," she hissed at O'Dowd, reaching out with her left hand; pushing down on his shoulder.

"What the hell are you doing!" he complained, and tried to twist round in his seat.

"I'm trying to save your miserable life," Ros spat back as she willed the car to make it to the relative safety of one of the underground car parks. "For God's sake, don't ask me why, or I might come to my senses and push you out onto the pavement."

As if on cue the left wing mirror was ripped from its socket as the passenger in the Shogun appeared to tire of the chase and opened fire on the Peugeot.

"Do something?"

"I'm open to suggestions!" Ros retorted sarcastically as the engine began to stutter again. She swung the steering wheel sharply to the left and willed the car to mount the kerb. There was – she hoped – enough room for the Peugeot to make its way through, but not enough for the wider-bodied Shogun.

They were only a short distance from temporary safety. The underground car park was less than a hundred metres away. If she could get the car into the dark expanse of the car park then there was a good chance that they could evade their pursuers.

Ros gritted her teeth as the side of the car scraped against the wall. There was very little space on her side and she knew that she daren't risk turning the wheel and striking one of the bollards. Her new route was slightly shorter than the route that the Shogun would have to take and she hoped that it would give her the edge. The car reached the lip of the slope and Ros found herself leaning forward in the seat, as though that would somehow help the car to move that little bit faster. As it finally began to roll down the incline, Ros turned her attention to O'Dowd.

"When I say jump, jump," she told him firmly.

He shot her a glance that told her he thought she was out of her mind.

"Fine," she told him curtly. "If you want to get yourself killed, stay here."

Ros let the car get up as much speed as possible, trusting to her driving skills that she'd be able to avoid the concrete pillars that were spaced throughout the floor. As she reached the bottom of the ramp, she scanned the darkness, trying to work out the best place to head for. She swung the wheel sharply to the left and the car did its best to respond; the sudden shift in balance almost turning the car over onto its side.

"Jump," Ros yelled as the vehicle straightened up.

She pulled on the door handle and leapt out; hitting the hard concrete shoulder first and rolling away from the still moving car.

O'Dowd was slower in reacting; fumbling slightly with the door as though he'd not really believed that Ros had meant what she said. He hit the ground with a thud; taking the brunt of the impact on his left side.

Ros was scrambling to her feet; ignoring the searing message of pain from her left shoulder as she heard the roar of the Shogun engine and moments later saw its powerful headlights sweeping across the blackness of the car park. Even before the tenants had been forced out, local thugs had been at work on the lighting – strip lights ostensibly safe behind rusting metal grilles were smashed beyond repair; some torn from their rails and lying scattered across the floor.

Ros searched the darkness for some sign of O'Dowd. The Peugeot was still heading in a straight line for the brick wall at the end of the car park, and Ros wanted to be on her way before that happened.

As the Shogun turned in her direction and the white glare of the headlights lit up the area, she caught sight of O'Dowd. He looked as though he had the wind knocked out of him, and he was making little effort to move. She pushed off in his direction; her feet struggling to find grip on the floor littered as it was with shards of glass and metal.

She was closing in on him as the first shot ripped through the air.

"Move it!" she forced the words out as she reached O'Dowd, grabbing hold of his shoulder with one hand and trying to physically drag him to his feet.

The lights of the Shogun were now firmly on them and Ros knew that they were running out of options.

"Come on," she yelled needlessly as a second shot rang out. The bullet slammed into the brickwork only inches away from its intended target.

Ahead was the heavy fire door that led to the stairwell and a potential escape route. Ros urged O'Dowd to move faster. His breathing was laboured as his body struggled to cope with the shock of what had happened.

Ros reached the door first and pulled heavily on the cold metal handle; swinging the door out and gesturing for O'Dowd to get forward.

Shots came again from the Shogun as it roared ever closer. The first one embedded itself in the frame of the door; splinters of wood cascading down around Ros' shoulders. A second was fired, moments after the first and Ros watched as O'Dowd staggered and then dropped to his knees.

The Shogun was almost on top of them. Ros let go of the door and in one fluid motion brought her handgun from the holster at small of her back, bringing it to bear on the approaching vehicle. She fired three shots directly at the windscreen, before rushing forward in an attempt to reach O'Dowd.

She could tell that she'd hit her target as the powerful white lights of the Shogun began to weave and change direction. The retort from her handgun had been loud and echoed around the empty car park, causing her ears to ring painfully.

As she reached O'Dowd, she grabbed again at his shoulders, dragging him towards the safety of the doorway. She could see his mouth opening and closing; letting out cries of pain, but she could hear nothing but the ringing in her ears and the feeling of adrenaline that was pumping through her system.

O'Dowd staggered to his feet, making an effort to move and Ros fired off another round in the direction of the Shogun. Keeping the gun in her hand she let go of O'Dowd and wrenched the door open again; bracing her weight against it, and then reaching down to bodily force O'Dowd through the opening; watching dispassionately as he collapsed in a heap onto the cold concrete floor.

Trying to ignore the almost overpowering stench of stale urine that assaulted her senses; she reached down with a hand and tried to get O'Dowd back on his feet.

"Come on," she yelled at him, trying her best to force him to move faster.

"Just go," O'Dowd hissed.

"Not a chance." Ros tugged again at O'Dowd's arm; letting him know that there was no chance that she was going to leave him where he was.

From the other side of the door there was the screeching sound of metal striking concrete. Ros fervently hoped that the sound was the Shogun crashing into one of the pillars. She needed as much of an advantage as she could get. If the injuries sustained by the Shogun's occupants were not serious, then they would be on her tail again in minutes. She glanced nervously towards the heavy fire door, as though expecting someone to come bursting through at any moment.

"Come on," she urged O'Dowd again as he grabbed at the stair rail. "You can die on me later. Now, just isn't an option."

She pushed him up the flight of shallow stairs, trying to tune out the constant stream of protests that he was making; listening out for any sound from behind.

As they reached the top of the flight, Ros stepped in front of O'Dowd. She pushed on the metal bar of the fire door and stepped out into the chill rain that was now pouring down from the grey sky above. She felt the heavy drops slam down onto her, and shivered despite herself.

She turned her head as she heard the grumbling of O'Dowd behind her. She had to get him somewhere safe, and then report in. Her hand reached reflexively to check her jacket pocket. There was nothing there. She swore beneath her breath, and pushed the handgun back into its holster before checking all her pockets. There was no sign of the phone.

She swore again, loudly this time, realising that she must have lost the phone in the car park, during her efforts to get away from the trailing Shogun.

Ros risked a quick look at their surroundings, before turning back and grabbing hold of O'Dowd's collar; dragging him as quickly as she could across the narrow courtyard and ducking back down behind a wall. There was no-one in sight, but the wall would offer little long-term protection. She needed to formulate a plan, and she needed to do so soon.

She pushed the soaking wet strands of hair out of her eyes and tried to work out the best option. O'Dowd was injured; from the way that he was bleating, and the steady flow of blood from his wound, he was running out of time. She edged back towards him; the sound of the gravel scraping beneath her feet, seemingly amplified with every step.

"We have to get out of here."

"Do you ever do anything other than state the bloody obvious?" O'Dowd hissed, his fingers tightening around his stomach.

"Do you ever do anything but whinge?"

Ros turned her head and looked up at the balconies that ran above.

"We can't stay here. I can't be certain what happened to the occupants of the Shogun and there are far too many places for a sniper to get an angle on our position. We need to get into the building."

O'Dowd craned his neck and looked at the bleak frontage of the old council block, windows and doors all covered with thick metal grilles.

"The place is boarded tight. What do you propose doing?"

"Not getting killed," Ros told him sharply and, without warning, rose from her crouched position and sprinted across to the nearest stairwell.

"Hey!" O'Dowd called after her, but she was already out of earshot.

* * *

Malcolm splashed the cold water from the tap onto his face, and then raised his head to look at his reflection in the mirror. His eyes were beginning to burn with tiredness, but there was no way that he was going anywhere... Not until they had heard a definitive answer from the hospital regarding Jo's condition. Terms such as 'comfortable', and 'doing as well as can be expected' were just not good enough. Malcolm was going to stay at his terminal until he managed to get something sensible out of the hospital files. He was already running a full diagnostic on the surveillance equipment from the house; trying to determine exactly how someone had managed to disrupt the signal coming back to the Grid.

He was roused from his reverie as the door opened and Harry entered. There was an unspoken agreement - long held - that no conversation was ever to take place within the confines of the bathrooms, but Malcolm sensed that Harry was about to break the rules.

"You should go home," Harry told him gently. "It's been a long day."

"One that isn't over yet," Malcolm was quick to point out. "And I don't see you heading for home."

"I don't want you to blame yourself for what happened to Jo," Harry got straight to the topic that he was certain was causing his friend to be so anxious.

"I should have raised the alarm the first time that there was a problem," Malcolm protested, thinking back to the earlier break up in the feed from the house. "They could have been watching the place for hours."

"I'm more interested in finding out how they knew we were there," Harry mused. "Anything back from the cleaning detail yet?"

Malcolm nodded, happy to get away from his own feelings of guilt, and to instead concentrate his mind on work.

"Just as you suspected, the house had been watched for some time. The police found the homeowner of the house across the street bound and gagged in his kitchen with a nasty lump on the back of his head."

Harry shook his head. "Someone knew exactly where we were."

"But why move when they did? Why not wait and storm the house?"

Harry considered the matter for a few moments. "Perhaps they knew that we were ready to move him." His words brought to mind his earlier conversation with Mace. Mace had told him to move O'Dowd. "Perhaps they knew that they wouldn't get the chance if we stepped up security. They wanted to get everyone out of that house, and into the open."

Malcolm let out a long breath. "Well they've certainly done that. Ros and Zaf are out there somewhere with O'Dowd."

Harry chewed on his lip. "And they've not phoned in?"

Malcolm shook his head. "There's been no contact, and no trace on the mobiles."

Harry looked at Malcolm again. "Take a break; take a couple of hours at least. You look as though you need it."

"I hate to break this to you, but you're not exactly the picture of alertness yourself," Malcolm replied quietly. "Did you actually get any sleep last night?"

Malcolm's question again bought the issue of Mace's early morning visit to the front of Harry's mind.

"If you're not going to get some sleep, at least make some coffee," Harry told Malcolm abruptly, trying to change the conversation. "We all need to be ready to move, the moment that we hear anything."

"Right." Malcolm stepped away from the sink, sensing that the impromptu conversation was at an end.

Harry watched him in the mirror, waiting until he was certain that his colleague had left the room, before leaning closer to the mirror and taking stock of his own bloodshot eyes.

* * *

Ros pressed herself up against the wall and glanced down at the street below through the narrow gap between the grille and the wall. She tried to ignore the stench of damp and the peeling green paint that was sticking to the back of her jacket. She heard a shuffling sound from somewhere by her feet, and hoped it was O'Dowd rather than the rats she was certain had claimed the disused block as their own.

It had been easier than she expected to get into the building. The local kids had obviously been busy since the workmen had carefully sealed the block up. She'd headed up to the fifth floor of the building, where it had only taken her moments to find a broken shutter. It had taken slightly longer to persuade O'Dowd that it was safer to move than to sit on the ground and wait for the shooter to find him. But she had persuaded him to move, and now he sat on the damp floor, breathing heavily, one hand still pressed to his wound. Time was not on her side; a fact that she was very much aware of. She had wanted to get to a position where she had the widest field of vision.

As she had been urging O'Dowd up the stairs, the door from the underground garage had opened, and a dazed looking man had emerged. He'd had a mobile phone to his ear and his free hand was gripping the stock of a semi-automatic handgun. Ros had pushed O'Dowd down out of sight, and tried to keep the younger man in view. From her vantage point, she had watched him as he scoured the area; searching for any signs of life.

It hadn't taken him long to find the trail of blood that O'Dowd had left, and then his attention had immediately switched to the balconies that ran the length of the floors. His conversation on the phone had become more animated, and although Ros couldn't make out what he was saying, she was fairly certain that he was summoning extra help.

The block she was in had only one central staircase; so if anyone was planning on launching an attack on the flat she was in, she had a good chance of seeing them coming. The solitary staircase also meant that she'd be trapped if anyone was planning on a long siege, but having weighed up the odds; she firmly believed that – one way of the other – things would be resolved by the end of the day.

* * *

"Well?"

"Well isn't a question," Ruth didn't bother looking up from her monitor as she continued her current search. One thing she could do without was distractions. She'd been scouring the online files for the past three hours, hoping to find something that would indicate who had the most to gain by killing O'Dowd.

"I've been looking at the bank accounts that Malcolm uncovered," Ruth explained. "Money was paid into O'Dowd's account **before **any announcement was made about his release." She turned her head and looked up at the expression on Harry's face. He obviously didn't understand what she was driving at. "Under current law, a serving prisoner, or a prisoner out on licence can be prevented from publishing a book. Why would someone like Burrows – who isn't exactly flush with money – make such a generous payment to someone who's shown no signs of getting a release?"

"Someone tipped Burrows off," Harry gave voice to the thought.

Ruth nodded. "It seems likely. Someone was very keen that O'Dowd should have a book ready to be published the moment that he got out. That book must contain something very special indeed."

"Something that was worth turning Burrows' world on its head for. From the rather scrappy report that Zaf left, it looks as though someone did a thorough job of turning the place upside-down."

"I fear that they've done rather more than that," Malcolm entered into the conversation. "There are reports coming in of a shooting at Waterhouse."

"What!" Ruth's tone was one of shock.

"I rather think it looks as though someone has decided that the time had come to dispense with Burrows' services," Malcolm paused for a moment to give Ruth time to navigate to the relevant information. "There's no formal identification of the body at the moment ..." he let the sentence tail off.

"Looks as though someone is trying to keep things neat," Harry growled. "I want the place searched ... and searched properly. If there is anything left to be found there, then I want it found."

"You think they were after the book?"

"Everything seems to keep coming round to that," Harry mused. "I want you to organise a team Malcolm; get them down there now, and get everything checked. Whatever it was that Burrows was hiding, I want it found."

Ruth kept her eyes on Harry as Malcolm moved off to carry out Harry's instructions. After a few moments, Harry became aware of the attention.

"Is there something bothering you?"

"Yes," she told him honestly. "You already knew about Burrows, didn't you?" She held up a hand. "When you replied to Malcolm, there wasn't even the slightest tone of surprise in your voice; as though someone had already told you."

Harry regarded Ruth calmly. "And what makes you the expert on my reaction to events?"

Ruth blushed slightly, and shrugged her shoulders.

Harry let the awkward moment last for a little longer before helping Ruth out of her discomfort.

"I did have a visitor this morning as it happens," he told her quietly. "But it's something that I don't want to become public knowledge."

"Understood," Ruth told him conspiratorially. She sat back in her chair. "You think that Burrows knew someone was after O'Dowd? I mean, it would probably increase sales if O'Dowd were to go out in a blaze of conspiratorial glory. Nothing like a death in suspicious circumstances to precipitate a second print run."

"You're becoming quite the conspiracy theorist," Harry noted, mulling over what Ruth had said.

"Zaf stated that Burrows was nothing if not jumpy."

"Psychotic paranoid I think were his exact words," Harry corrected, as he considered the matter further.

"We've been looking into O'Dowd's contemporises; trying to find a figure that doesn't want to belong. What if we've been barking up the wrong tree?"

Harry shook his head. "There is something about this book that is causing a lot of people to get very, very uneasy. The Home Secretary mentioned it, and so has Mace. If someone is now prepared to kill to keep it from getting into the public domain, then I'd say that it was at the heart of the matter."

Harry pushed away from the desk he had been leaning against. "Keep looking into it Ruth, keep digging. The answer is in there somewhere."

* * *

The afternoon light was already beginning to fade, and Ros was starting to think that she'd made the wrong decision to stay put. There was a definite chill in the air, and it was seeping into her bones as she stayed crouched low against the damp, peeling wall of the derelict flat.

"Change of plan ..." she began to explain, but was cut short.

"Listen to that," O'Dowd raised a hand into the air indicating that Ros should be quiet.

She frowned and tried to work out what it was that had attracted O'Dowd's attention.

"There's nothing there," she finally told him, not bothering to mask the frustration in her voice.

O'Dowd shook his head and listened to the regular rumble of a tube train as it passed close to the building they were in. "I've missed that sound." He caught the expression of distain on Ros' face. "It might be something that you don't even notice but it's something I've not heard in years."

Ros pursed her lips. "I'm more interested in whether or not you can hear the approach of the people that are trying to kill us, rather than your rather trite trips down memory lane."

"You're all heart aren't you?" he noted sarcastically.

Ros shrugged her shoulders. "I find it hard feeling any sympathy for someone who chose the slaughter of innocents as their career path from school. Tell me; did you tell your career's teacher what you wanted to be when you grew up?"

"You just don't understand, do you?" O'Dowd began to protest, but Ros cut him off.

"Did they have prize-giving at your school? We're you voted 'person most-likely to succeed in blowing people up'? I'm sure that your old school includes your name in all their prospectuses. Quite the little celebrity in your home town, I'm sure."

"You've never had to make a single hard choice in your life, have you?" O'Dowd countered. "You never had to stand there and watch as the Army marched through the streets as though they owned the place. You know nothing of the realities of living under those kinds of conditions, so don't you dare sit there and presume to judge me."

"You still had choices to make, and you made them," Ros told him firmly.

O'Dowd let out an exclamation. "You think the world's so black and white, don't you? I bet you imagine yourself charging in on some milk white steed; ready to save the day for the good guys. I grew up in a house, where by the time I was ten I was expected to have made my mind up. 'Friends' of my father would visit the house, just to check that we were towing the party line. These were people that you didn't cross, they wouldn't kill you from the outside; they'd tear you apart from the inside. Take away everything that you cared about and let you know that it was your fault that others were suffering," O'Dowd broke off and studied the impassive expression on Ros' face. "You don't care about any of this, do you? You don't care what I've been through."

"I've read more heart warming stories in the magazines in the dentist's waiting room," she told him coldly, glancing out of the window again, her eyes drawn by a flicker of movement on the edge of her vision. As she watched, a grey tabby cat padded silently across the concrete between two blocks; pausing once to sniff the air as though it knew it was being watched before continuing on its territorial prowl.

"Do you care about anyone in this world?" O'Dowd asked her. "Do you actually have an ounce of compassion for another human being?"

"For another human being ...yes," she replied, not bothering to turn towards him. "If we're going to get out of this, I need you to keep quiet. We don't know what sort of technology they have on their side."

O'Dowd let out a short laugh. "You're not very keen on the personal, are you? What is it ...scared that someone might actually find out that there's something beating beneath that icy front you put up?"

"If you want to die ...then I'm sure I can arrange it," Ros replied, shifting position slightly to get a better eyeline on the building opposite. "But if you want to get out of this with your life intact, then I suggest you shut up and let me ..."

She froze. Suddenly. Every muscle still. Her breath caught in the back of her throat as she crouched, back pressed up against the damp wall of the derelict flat. O'Dowd noticed the change in her posture immediately and wondered just what it was that had spooked her so much. He opened his mouth to ask the question and then he saw it... the single red dot from a laser sight that danced along the back wall of the room. It stopped, as though able in some way to sense their presence, before continuing its path across the wall.

Then it was gone.

"Shit," O'Dowd let the word slip out beneath his breath, as he tried to calm the pounding in his heart. There was no reason to believe that the sniper had any idea that they were in the room. He was simply sighting the weapon, checking the building, looking for any sign of life.

After what felt like an eternity, O'Dowd let out the rest of the breath that he had been holding and looked towards Ros; hoping to see some reassurance in her expression.

"That was close," he told her. And a split second later the shot rang out.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Apologies for taking so long to update this. RL has not been my best friend for the past few months. I'll do my best to get the rest of this up soon. Assuming that anyone has the patience to stick with it! :)**_

* * *

"Harry?"

Harry looked up from his desk to see Ruth standing pensively in the doorway. He motioned for her to come in, but she remained where she was, unease plain on her face.

"What is it?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Well then you've come to the right place."

Ruth shook her head. "Not here," she looked around. "Too many..." she searched around for the right word. "Too many chances to be overheard."

"Well where **would** you be willing to talk? We are rather busy."

Ruth glanced around as though trying to make up her mind. "It's something I don't want to talk about here."

Before Harry had the chance to tell her that he just didn't have the time to leave the Grid, Malcolm appeared in the doorway behind Ruth.

"I've just received yet another phone call from the police in Battersea. They have a man in custody who maintains that he's a member of 5."

Harry sighed heavily. "We get half a dozen calls a day from people deluded enough to believe that they work for us...What's your point?"

Malcolm's mouth twitched with the hint of a smile. "This is the first time that we've ever had someone with the code words that identify him as Zafar Younis!"

A slight smile formed on Harry's face. "Get it confirmed that it's Zaf and then get him out of there. We need all the help we can get."

"I knew he'd be fine," Ruth spoke the words beneath her breath; her face losing its look of intense concentration for the first time in several hours.

For a moment the sense of relief was shared by the three of them, but Harry was quick to quell it.

"We need something to go on; something concrete."

Malcolm backed out of the room. "I'll check the wires again; see what's out there."

Harry's gaze fell on Ruth.

"Please," she told him. "There is something I think you should see."

He took in the expression on Ruth's face; it wasn't like her to appear so uneasy.

"Just five minutes," she told him. "...Please."

"Five minutes," he finally relented.

* * *

The round tore through the metal grille as though it were paper, and buried itself into the far wall; the displaced brick dust showering down upon O'Dowd.

Ros met O'Dowd's gaze. "Guess that means they've found us then!" she remarked flatly.

O'Dowd's face was ashen; all colour drained from it.

"We're dead," he whimpered.

Ros ignored him and edged round, trying to get a better angle on the courtyard below. The light was fading fast and so far only one of the security lights had come on. Its thin yellow beam of light did little to lift the gloom that was settling around the estate. If the other lights failed to come on then, as the shadows lengthened, her position would become less defensible.

She cursed beneath her breath, questioning again her own judgement about staying where they were. It was apparent that it was now too late to move.

"Hey," a man's booming voice broke the silence, the sound echoing off of the walls, making it impossible to work out which direction it had originated from.

"I've got an offer for you," the man continued.

"Not interested," Ros yelled back, shifting her position slightly. Her joints were beginning to ache the longer she stayed crouched next to the window, but she knew that she had to remain vigilant. The call could prove to be little more than a diverting tactic.

"You haven't heard the details of what I have to offer yet. Don't make any hasty decisions until I've told you the deal that's on the table," the man's voice floated back. "I'm here to tell you that you can leave now; no questions asked. It's not you we're interested in."

"I'll be sure to mention that to my colleague you shot earlier!" Ros paused before continuing. "You're not going to try and tell me that that was an accident, are you? A little inadvertent slip of the trigger finger!"

"That was unfortunate..."

"I'll be sure to tell her parents that at the funeral!" Ros scoured the narrow view she had of the opposite building, trying to spot if there was anyone there.

"Now is not the time to get bogged down with things that have happened previously. I have an offer here, and from the position you're currently in; it's the best that you could hope for."

"Not interested," Ros called out flatly, as she pressed her back up against the flaking damp wall of the flat.

"Ok, let me put things in perspective for you," the voice continued. "The effective range of that handgun you have is what .... twenty-five feet? ... Just how close do you imagine you're going to get to my position before I blow you away?" There was a pause. "Just a hypothetical scenario you understand!"

Ros clicked on the magazine release, and waited for the mag to drop into her hand. She needlessly checked the number of rounds that were there before sliding the magazine back into place. She knew exactly what she was carrying; it was exactly the same number of rounds that she always loaded, there was just a little reassurance to be gained by counting them. She felt a brief pang of regret about the number of shots she had fired at the Shogun in the car park. That now meant that she was down to twelve rounds.

The ache in her calves grew too painful, and so she lowered herself down onto the damp floor of the flat.

Across from her, O'Dowd shivered. "Are you going to take them up on their offer?" he asked nervously.

Ros arched an eyebrow. "And let you die a martyr to your cause? Oh you'd like that I'm sure."

"You think that anyone cares about me now?" O'Dowd's voice was little more than a whisper. "I'm never going to get back home; never going to have a reunion with my family."

"Heart-warming though your story is, I do have a few more pressing concerns at the moment," Ros told him icily as she moved across the room, careful to keep below the level of the window frame.

"It's not you they want to kill," O'Dowd told her.

Ros glanced back in his direction. "Oh no? Well they didn't seem to be too discerning with their field of fire earlier."

"So why don't you just go?" O'Dowd motioned towards the door.

"Don't tempt me."

"It's not as though you actually care one way or the other, is it?"

"Do you want to just shut up!" Ros snapped in reply.

O'Dowd smiled thinly. "I've been silent for far too long." He paused and watched her for a few moments. "Why are you staying?" he asked again, watching as his breath formed in the quickly chilling air.

"My job is to keep you safe. So that's what I'm going to do."

"And it's as simple as that?"

Ros shrugged her shoulders and scanned the area in front of the building again. "It is as far as I'm concerned. Don't flatter yourself that I'm doing this out of some sense of friendship. I was tasked to look after you ... that's why I'm here... In fact it's the only reason I'm here."

O'Dowd winced as a shiver of pain ran through his side. "They'll kill you ...you do understand that?"

Ros didn't answer, simply maintained her vigil on the world outside. She didn't need O'Dowd to state the obvious. Unless she could find some way of getting away from the sniper outside, then it was only a matter of time before he called his friends in. The man had to be aware that he had them pinned down. The shot had been little more than a warning; a subtle taunt. He had them and he knew it. There was only one way out of the building and he had it covered. Without raising her head above the level of the windowsill there was no way she could work out exactly where he was and without that knowledge she couldn't risk moving out.

"I guess we just have to wait for the police to show up," O'Dowd muttered. "So much for the security services."

Ros turned to look at O'Dowd, her expression one of disbelief. "And I bet that you still believe in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy!"

O'Dowd gestured towards the hole that had been ripped in the grille covering the window. "The shot; someone must have reported it to the police."

"Really!" Ros crouched down, with her back against the damp wall of the flat. "Last year, when there were still people living in this cesspool, there was a shooting. Took the police nearly a week to discover the body. No-one called it in, no-one wanted to stick their head above the parapet and make themselves the next name on the gunman's hit list." She shook her head. "That 'us against them' crap that seems to be the backbone of prison life doesn't translate out here; it's everyone for themselves."

"And yet you're still here," O'Dowd pointed out.

"Don't really see that I have many choices," Ros replied flatly.

* * *

Harry pushed opened the door onto the roof, and immediately felt the chill in the air. Ruth was standing at the railing, a file clutched to her chest, seemingly oblivious to the wind that was howling around her. He made his way towards her, catching the look of unease on her features as she turned to face him, her face cast in a slight orange hue from the security lights above her.

"On the morning of November the 13th 1987 Martin O'Dowd was meeting with two officers from MI-5." Ruth pulled the file she was holding away from her chest and passed it to Harry. "I was searching for all references to O'Dowd and came across this."

She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and watched as Harry flipped open the file and scanned through the documents within.

"It's a transcript of the meeting that took place," Ruth explained needlessly.

"I can see that," Harry told her with a touch of impatience in his voice. "Why the cloak and dagger act Ruth? It wasn't uncommon for such meetings to take place with undercover officers."

"This wasn't an undercover operation. O'Dowd knew exactly who they were. This was a meeting to discuss O'Dowd's agreement to supply information to the security services."

Harry opened his mouth to say something but Ruth pushed on, not letting him speak. "At the time that O'Dowd is reported as planting a bomb in the centre of the city, he is on tape, in conversation with MI-5 officers halfway across town." She looked searchingly at Harry. "O'Dowd couldn't have planted the Leadenhall bomb. He was set up... set up by the security services."

"That's rather dangerous accusation to make," Harry told her quietly.

"This file was never presented at the trial as the identity of the MI-5 officers was considered too important to be compromised."

Harry lifted his eyes from the page and studied Ruth. "Do I take it that you know the identity of the officers involved?"

Ruth's eyes flicked down to her hands; her attention seemingly bound up in twisting a silver ring around a finger of her right hand.

"Ruth..."

The fingers stopped their nervous action and Ruth slowly raised her head to meet Harry's gaze.

"Mace ... One of the officers at the meeting was Oliver Mace." Ruth took in the expression on Harry's face and sought to justify herself. "You said that Mace had come to see you and I got to wondering how come he knew so much about Burrows and O'Dowd...."

"So you went through his files and found this?"

Ruth nodded. "It took some searching, but it was there."

Harry let out a slow breath. "...This is a mess. This is more than a mess." He glanced at Ruth. "Do you know who the other officer was?"

Ruth shook her head. "His name has been very meticulously removed from the records."

"Removed?" Harry queried the use of the word.

"Someone has been very thorough. The only name that can still be reliably attached to this whole business is Oliver Mace's."

Harry leant against the railing and stared out across the rooftops, trying to take the information in. All along they'd been played. The Home Secretary had been right to be suspicious. Someone was out to outmanoeuvre Mace, and presumably whoever else he was with on that morning. They didn't have the name of the other officer, but Mace would know … and presumably the people who engineered O'Dowd's release knew as well. It had to be someone pretty high up; someone for whom a revelation of this sort would mean the end of their career. The Home Secretary's comment about the Government toppling came back to his mind; as did Mace's early morning visit to his house.

He sighed. "At least it explains why someone was after Burrows. We've been chasing the wrong angle. O'Dowd's book was always going to be about who he was working with; it's just that he was going to be writing about the security services; not the others he was working with."

Ruth let out a long breath. "Imagine what would happen if this information were to get out,"

"Then perhaps it's best that it remains where you found it," Harry told her firmly, pressing the file back into her hands.

"But Harry…"

"I need you to forget that you've seen this Ruth."

She shook her head. "You don't know what you're asking..." she began to protest but Harry cut her off.

"I know exactly what I'm asking Ruth, and I know that it's a hard thing to do. But trust me when I say that it is in the best interests of the country that this never comes to light."

Ruth shook her head in disbelief. "Harry, the man has spent over twenty years in prison for something that he didn't do...Worse still it's something that we set him up for."

"And what about the things that he did do?" Harry countered. "The bombs that he made for others. The explosions that he was never caught for..."

"You can't use that to justify this ..."

"Ruth, please. For now just do as I ask."

Harry turned on his heel, preparing to leave.

"Where are you going?"

Harry turned back; his expression impassive.

"There's someone I need to have a quiet word with. I'm going to leave this with you Ruth. Bury it; return it to the dusty archive you found it in – I don't care. What I do care about is that this information does not go beyond the two of us."

Ruth opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it again, silently nodding her consent.

"Thank you."

Ruth watched as Harry turned again and took a few paces back towards the door. She hesitated, as though unsure that the question going around in her head was really one that needed an answer; then closed her eyes and reached a decision.

"This morning...when you called...." she broke off and let out a long breath. "You wanted a lift to the safe house. I... I didn't question it then..."

Harry paused and turned to face Ruth. "But you're wanting to question it now?"

Ruth flinched at the tone in Harry's voice.

"Yes...well no...I mean I was just..."

"...Wondering why I suddenly wanted to see O'Dowd?"

Ruth could feel Harry's gaze upon her and wished that she'd never bought the subject up. Taking a deep breath she met Harry's piercing stare.

"Yes."

Harry held the look. "I rang you because I wanted someone I felt I could rely on, could trust." He held her gaze. "Do you trust me?"

Ruth's eyes dropped, knowing that she should never have asked the question. "You know I do."

"Then trust me."

Halfway towards the door, Harry paused. After a few moments of consideration, he turned on his heel and headed back to where Ruth was standing, looking out over the city. He took up a place next to her at the railings and leant on them before speaking.

"In November 1987 the work I was doing had nothing to do with...."

"Harry, you don't...' she began to interrupt him but he motioned for her to be quiet.

"I know," he told her quietly. "I had a visit from Mace this morning; he came to see me, spouting warnings of doom but did little to elaborate on them. Rest assured my request to see O'Dowd had nothing to do with the contents of that file. Its existence is as much of a surprise to me as it was to you." His eyes scanned her face. "It's important to me that you believe me Ruth."

She held his gaze for a few moments before replying softly. "I believe you."

"Thank you… I trust that I can rely on you to put that file somewhere safe? I have someone I need to talk to."

"Of course," Ruth told him softly, watching as Harry pushed away from the railings and headed back into the building.


	14. Chapter 14

**_A big thanks to everyone who had the patience to stay with this and review. I didn't intend for it to take so long to post. Till the next time SD._**

* * *

Malcolm looked up as he heard Harry make his way across the Grid. He quickly slipped off the headset he was wearing and rose to his feet.

"Harry, there's something I think you ought to hear,"

"Not now," Harry told him smartly, as he strode towards the door.

"But this is important," Malcolm protested.

"Then tell Adam all about it," Harry shot back as he reached the exit.

"But Adam's..." Malcolm was about to point out that Adam wasn't on the Grid, when he spotted him coming in through the doors.

"I'm going out," Harry addressed Adam, the moment the younger man was on the Grid. "Malcolm's got news for you. See if you can't manage to get O'Dowd back in custody before I ring in."

Adam had no chance to reply as Harry moved straight on through the security doors, without stopping to wait. Adam shook his head and then turned his attention to Malcolm.

"Malcolm, what have you got for me?"

"Listening to the police traffic. There's a report coming in of an incident in the vicinity of the Cantallo Estate. Not something that I'd usually consider to be of interest, but for the fact that someone reported a Shogun and a Peugeot being involved in something of a race in the area."

"A black Shogun by any chance?" Adam enquired as he moved round to take a look at the screen in front of Malcolm.

Malcolm nodded. "A little too close to pass of as coincidental."

"Get on the phone to CO19. See if you can't persuade them that it would be in their best interests to be in the area. If it does turn out to be local kids, then they're about to get the biggest, short, sharp, shock of their young lives!"

"I'm on it."

Moving away from Malcolm's desk, Adam sought out Ruth. He was somewhat surprised to see that she wasn't at her desk, fingers frantically tapping away at the keyboard in the way that she usually was. He frowned and glanced around the Grid, trying to work out where she might be.

Moments later he spotted her making her way across the floor; a file clutched in one hand.

"Something interesting?" he enquired, watching as Ruth attempted to hide the file beneath a pile of others on her desk.

"It's nothing," she told him hurriedly, as she turned her attention to the unread messages in her inbox.

Adam watched her for a little while before shrugging his shoulders and returning his attention to Malcolm. There were times when he had the feeling that there were things going on on the Grid that he didn't fully understand.

* * *

"I was in a meeting in a house on Coniston Road." O'Dowd's voice cut through the cold silence in the air again.

Ros narrowed her eyes and crouched down; the fingers of her left hand gripping the peeling paintwork as she readjusted her balance; eyes staring ahead, scanning the shadows for the slightest movement.

"Are you listening?"

"Are you still talking?"

"The bombing...it wasn't me. Not that day at least." There was pain in O'Dowd's voice and Ros heard him shuffle around on the ground behind her, trying to find a more comfortable position.

"The people you work for set me up," he told her bitterly.

"And yet none of this comes up at your trial," Ros hissed back, wishing that O'Dowd would shut up and let her concentrate on what was going on outside. "Pardon me, if I don't start weeping tears of unbridled compassion!"

O'Dowd let out a short bark of a laugh. "What do you think would have happened to me if I stood there in court and claimed that I was with MI-5 officers at the time of the bombing? The people I worked for would have taken my family apart piece by piece. The security services were very good at covering their tracks. The only people that would have believed the story would have been the people I was working for ... and I wasn't about to commit suicide."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Ros wanted to know, finally turning round to face him, her face half hidden by the lengthening shadows. "It's not as though I'm going to offer you absolution."

"I've had to live with this knowledge for over twenty years. It's not dying with me, whatever your bosses may want."

A sound from outside drew Ros' attention back to the window and she was immediately back on full alert. She caught sight of a movement on the periphery of her vision. It was gone before she could identify it, but there was every reason to suspect that it was the shooter closing in on their position.

"We've got to move," she hissed beneath her breath.

"But the sniper..."

"I'm not just going to sit here and invite death in," Ros snapped back.

"How the hell did he find us anyway?"

"That question has been bothering me for some time," Ros admitted. "He found the safe house without a problem, and then the Shogun tracked us here... again seemingly with no trouble."

"You're assuming it's the same man."

Ros shot O'Dowd a black look. "I never assume anything. It's just more than a little unlikely that the two events are unconnected." She let out a short laugh. "I wonder..."

"What?" O'Dowd eyed her nervously.

"When you left prison, what were you given?"

"What?"

Ros sighed impatiently. "Did they hand you back anything… Jewellery, clothing ... anything?"

O'Dowd's attention drifted to the watch on his left wrist. Ros followed his gaze.

"Take it off," she snapped.

O'Dowd winced as he moved. "Aren't you getting a little paranoid?"

Ros chose to ignore him.

"Take it off and slide it over here."

Wordlessly, O'Dowd followed her instructions. Ros picked up the heavy silver-chained watch and turned it over in her palm – looking for signs that the back had been tampered with. Even in the fading light she could make out the faint scratches where someone had removed the back.

She placed her handgun down on the floor, and fished into her pocket for her pen knife. Selecting one of the thinnest blades, she slipped it behind the casing, and prised the back of the watch apart.

"Well this explains a lot," she remarked coldly, removing a small transmitter and placing it down on the floor.

"What the …" O'Dowd tailed off as he realised the implications.

"Who did you see at the prison before leaving?" Ros demanded to know.

"They set me up," O'Dowd breathed. "Even now, they won't let me go." He glanced up and saw the neutral expression on Ros' face. "The people you work for must have sanctioned this. For all you know it could be one of your colleagues out there trying to kill me."

"Now who's being paranoid?"

Ros turned away from him, not wanting him to see the expression on her face. He was right, and she knew he was.

"This book that you're writing," she asked finally. "What's it actually about?"

O'Dowd let out a short laugh; one that was followed almost immediately by a gasp of pain. "I was wondering when you'd get round to thinking about that."

"Who is it that you're actually going to affect with your words?"

The smile on O'Dowd's face became a grimace. "Oh there are people out there I can hurt; I know that much." He shifted painfully on the floor. "Got a visit a few months ago; some guy telling me that I could make a little money for myself."

"And does this mysterious Fairy Godmother have a name?" Ros asked icily. "Or did he simply appear to you in a dream!"

"Oh he was real enough," O'Dowd assured her. "Set me up with Burrows, and made sure that I had the time to write everything down."

Ros considered O'Dowd's words for a few moments. "This mystery man; I take it that he took the manuscript out of the prison for you?"

O'Dowd nodded. "Took everything to Burrows. Burrows has everything."

Ros chewed her lip thoughtfully. With a sniper on the doorstep waiting to silence O'Dowd, it was even money that there was someone after Burrows. They wouldn't be an amateur either; it was becoming more and more apparent that this was a highly professional operation. It was even possible that she had ridden the lift at Thames House with the person who at this very moment was waiting to splatter her brains across the walls. She swore beneath her breath; what the hell had Harry got them involved in!

* * *

Oliver Mace raised his head from his work as he heard the commotion in the adjoining room.

Moments later the doors were thrown open and, Oliver found that he wasn't remotely surprised to see Harry Pearce marching into his office.

"This is an unexpected pleasure," he announced calmly, indicating to his secretary that he could leave them alone. "Please... Harry... take a seat... Andrew, some tea for myself and Mr Pearce,"

Harry ignored the offer of a seat and crossed swiftly to where Mace was standing. He grabbed hold of the man's lapels and pushed him back across the room; forcing him up against the bookcase at the back of the office.

"Sir..." the secretary began nervously; not sure what to make of the situation.

"You heard Mr Mace," Harry snarled, his face only inches away from Mace's. "He wants some tea." He paused and waited to hear movement from behind. "I suggest you get to it right away."

The secretary dithered in the doorway for a few moments before making his excuses and backing away, closing the doors quietly behind him.

"You're not exactly surrounding yourself with lions," Harry told him with a smile.

Mace made an effort to loosen the grip that was on his jacket, but Harry only pushed him harder against the bookcase.

"Whatever this is," Mace began, trying to keep the quaver from his voice. "I'm sure we'd be better off discussing it like gentleman."

"Gentlemen," Harry spat the word in Mace's face. "I'm surprised that you still know the meaning of the word."

"And I'm surprised that you think that you can come in here like John Wayne and still expect to get everything your own way." Mace stared down at Harry's hands. "Now, do you mind..."

Reluctantly, Harry released the hold he had on Mace's jacket and stepped back.

Mace made a show of pulling the jacket straight before indicating that Harry should take a seat.

"To what do I owe this unexpected visit?"

"Martin O'Dowd."

Mace pulled a face and stared down at his perfectly manicured nails. "There are more pleasant things to discuss," he began, but Harry cut him off.

"I know where O'Dowd was on the morning of the bombings," he announced quietly.

"That's hardly ground-breaking news. Anyone who read the police report knows O'Dowd's movements on that day."

"I wasn't referring to police reports," Harry replied coldly. "A certain file has brought to my attention. A certain file whose contents make it impossible for Martin O'Dowd to be the man who planted those bombs."

Harry noted the way that Mace shifted position on his chair.

"And you trust this source?" Mace wanted to know.

"With my life."

Mace shook his head. "Whatever happened to the Harry Pearce who trusted nothing but his own opinions?"

"He grew up. Now Oliver, I'm prepared to bury this information where it can never be found, but I want you to understand that if you ever try and use my people again in something like this, I will see to it that you are called to account."

"And what makes you think that any of this has anything to do with me?"

Harry narrowed his eyes. "Your little comments; your cryptic little hints. You're in this Oliver, right up to your neck. And don't insult my intelligence by denying it; I've seen the transcript of the meeting Oliver. I know you were there. Former associates of O'Dowd were probably quaking in their ivory towers when they heard of his release, but they're not the ones who've been taking pot shots at my officers... are they Oliver! They weren't the only ones who had something to lose if O'Dowd decided to publish and be damned!"

Mace's eyes widened at the comment, but he remained silent.

"It's been my officers with him Oliver. I shouldn't like to think that their lives have at any point been put at risk because someone decided that they had the right to play God."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Cut the little boy lost act, no-one is buying it; least of all me. You're involved in this, and the sooner you start levelling with me, the sooner that I will be out of here."

"No-one is going to grieve over the death of a mass murderer Harry. Rather than standing here and flinging mud around where you know it won't stick; I'd advise you to thank me for trying to protect your officers' lives and leave it there."

"I don't know whose tune you're dancing to Oliver, but it stops here."

The expression on Mace's face hardened. "If O'Dowd was allowed to publish Harry, I doubt even you could imagine the carnage that would follow. This is not some minor back-bencher we're talking about Harry; this goes higher...this goes ...."

Harry held up a hand. "I don't want to know exactly where it's going. I don't want to wake up in the morning to find a gun pressed to my head, because someone's decided that it's better to silence me than rely on my word. I'd rather continue with the bliss of ignorance, than become a part of this."

"But you're already a part of this," Mace countered. He paused as Harry's phone began to ring.

Glaring at Mace with undisguised contempt, Harry reached into his jacket for his phone. "This better be important," he growled into the handset.

After a few moments, he tersely ended the call, and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

"Well, well, well. Things just got a little more interesting," he told Mace. "CO19 have been called out to the Cantallo Estate, responding to an incident involving a certain black Shogun. If sources are correct; it's the very same black Shogun that has been tracking O'Dowd. I believe that's what's known as checkmate!"

* * *

Ros closed her eyes and let out a long breath. Across the room she could hear the laboured breathing of O'Dowd. His condition had deteriorated in the last hour, and Ros knew that without medical help, the man was likely to bleed out within the hour.

She opened her eyes and reached for her handgun. There were only twelve rounds left. She passed the gun from one hand to the other, trying to decide on the best course of action. She had to make a move out of the room if O'Dowd was to stand any chance of staying alive. It was a course of action that would place her in the firing line of the sniper. A sniper who had a laser sight, and probably thermal imaging equipment as well. The bastard was just playing with her now; waiting until she made her move before picking her off.

Keeping the gun in her right hand, she turned to the window; raising herself back up into a crouching position. She peered out through the narrow gap at the edge of the grille, trying to keep away from the hole that the sniper's round had made.

Down below the estate was now shrouded in shadows. There was nothing down there, nothing at all. She tensed as the sound of a car engine broke the silence. Moments later, a blue strobing light lit up the walls of the lower floors. Ros watched in disbelief as a police car made its way onto the roadway between the two tall tower blocks. Behind it was an unmarked blue van. Ros knew exactly what it would contain. She allowed herself a small smile. There was a chance after all... assuming that CO19 didn't just place themselves directly in the firing line.

She watched as the vehicles came to a halt; the blue lights still strobing on the walls of the courtyard below. Ros waited for the doors of the vehicles to open and the armed officers to emerge, but there was no further movement. The engines were switched off and the lights extinguished.

Ros felt her heart sink as she realised what was going on. The officers were there, but someone had got to them first. They weren't going to do anything but wait.

* * *

Adam paced across the office, his hands clasped behind his head.

"Alpha leader, alpha leader. Do you see the target?"

There was nothing but static on the other end of the line.

"Alpha leader you have the green light to shoot. Acknowledge."

Adam starred at the speaker on the table, willing a voice to respond to his order.

"Malcolm?"

"The signal is good Adam; there's no reason why he can't hear you."

"Alpha leader," Adam growled. "State your location."

He swore loudly as there was no reply.

"What the hell are they playing at?" he demanded to know.

Malcolm switched between programs on his monitor, and called up the CCTV camera network from the estate. Most of the cameras were out of action, having been vandalised by the locals, but there were still one or two that projected fuzzy images of the rundown estate onto the screen at the far end of the room.

"Next one," Adam instructed as the first image showed him nothing but the sight of an empty walkway.

Malcolm obligingly moved the search on. He stopped as the next image brought up a shot of the parked police vehicles.

"What are they doing?" Adam demanded to know, as he made his way closer to the screen.

Malcolm narrowed his eyes and tried to determine detail in the image. "It looks as though they're still in the vehicles," he announced, using a pointer to indicate the back seat of the lead car.

Adam swore again, and leaned forward towards the communication equipment on the table. "There is an MI-5 officer with O'Dowd. You will damn well get out of your vehicles and do your job."

Adam stared at the image on the screen. There was no sign of any movement. Swearing loudly, Adam snatched up the phone on the desk and dialled Harry.

* * *

Harry glared at the small handset as once again it intruded into the conversation. There were times when he was less than convinced that they were an entirely beneficial development. He punched the answer button and brought the phone up to his ear.

"What is it?" he demanded to know.

The expression on his face darkened as he heard the news that Adam had to report. Without warning he broke the connection and rose to his feet.

Mace read the body language of his colleague and sat back in his chair, as if in some way it would protect him from what was coming.

"Just what the hell is going on?"

Mace shrugged his shoulders. "You're going to have to be a little more specific than that," he replied, managing to keep his tone even.

"Seems your 'friend' has contacts everywhere," Harry snarled. "CO19 are refusing to respond to the orders that have been given to them."

Mace plastered a smile upon his face. "This is not of my doing Harry. I can't help you."

"Oliver... Call off the dogs...O'Dowd will not publish, and whoever's sordid little secret it is that you're keeping will remain off of the front pages of the red tops." He scanned Mace's face looking for some sign that his words were having the desired effect. "Come on Oliver you are running out of time. My officer comes out of this with anything more than a chipped fingernail and I will personally circulate the story that you were responsible for setting up the meeting with O'Dowd." He tilted his head slightly. "You know that I'd do it Oliver ... don't you!"

"You can't blackmail me Harry..." Mace insisted.

"Well someone obviously can ... and has," Harry countered. "I don't care what they've told you they'll do - trust me; it's nothing to what I'll do. I know where the bodies are buried Oliver."

"O'Dowd's life is not worth this effort Harry. The sooner he is silenced, the sooner that stability can be re-established. Where there's life, there's threat. We need to snuff out that threat Harry." He took in the look on Harry's face. "If it ever comes to light that members of the security services were complicit in the deaths of three school children, there will be no chance of any of us retaining our posts. This won't just shake the tree Harry; this will bring down the whole orchard."

Mace waited for some sort of reply from Harry, but none was forthcoming.

"If I make this call; then it could be the end of a lot more things than just your pension."

"Make the call," Harry told him flatly.

Mace paused for a moment as though caught in two minds. Then suddenly he reached for his mobile and selected a number.

"End it," he spoke the words quietly into the phone.

* * *

A single shot rang out. The echo reverberated around the crumbling estate block – a sharp crack that disturbed the silence and ushered the birds out of the trees and into the darkening sky.

* * *

"I hope you know what you've just done," Mace told Harry calmly as he placed the phone down on the polished surface of the mahogany table, and leant back into the worn leather of his chair. "A single shot from a marksman can do so much more than end one life. You'd better be sure that your officer was worth the price."

Not bothering to respond, Harry turned smartly and made his way across the office; yanking open the doors and striding out.

Mace watched him go; a small smile spreading across his face.

* * *

Ros sat back on her heels and stared mutely at man now sprawled on the floor in front of her. The shot had been taken with pin-point accuracy; the back wall of the room splattered with blood and brain matter as the bullet forced its way through O'Dowd and buried itself in the wall beyond.

Ros felt unnaturally calm and still; slightly removed from the world. Aware of what was going on around her, but not feeling a part of it.

There was the sound of heavy booted feet on the stairwell; muffled shouts as the CO19 officers cleared the rooms – growing louder as they neared the flat she was in.

She sat on her heels and waited for them.

The piercing beam of a torch blinded her vision, and moments later she could make out a male voice barking orders; she guessed that the words were aimed in her direction, but she didn't have the wherewithal to respond.

The words were repeated, and then her vision was blocked as dark shapes crowded around her. She felt hands roughly grabbing her arms; prising the handgun from her grip as they pulled her none too gently to her feet before pushing her against the damp, peeling wall of the flat. She made no protest as the treatment continued; hands searching for other weapons or means of identification, before she was spun round again and the bright beam of the torch shone directly into her eyes.

"It seems we owe you an apology," the words filtered through into her brain. "Looks as though you've done us all a favour." She struggled to understand what the man was talking about.

"She's not the shooter," another of the officers reported, holding up Ros' handgun. "Barrel of the gun is cold."

There was a pause, and the attitude of the officer seemed to switch again as he realised that she'd actually been trying to keep O'Dowd alive.

The light was lowered from her eyes, and the officer raised his radio.

"Situation is under control sir. One fatality, one baby-sitter. No sign of the shooter."

The second officer placed Ros' handgun onto the floor, and shot her a disgusted look. "What were you looking to do; secure a bonus from your bosses?"

Satisfied that they'd done all they needed, the black-clothed officers filed out of the room, leaving Ros standing alone with O'Dowd's body.

* * *

"Pearce knows."

The voice was hard, and Mace flinched at the tone.

"He's not going to cause us any problems," he assured the man on the other end of the line. "He's yet to realise that O'Dowd is dead. He has however seen transcripts of the Coniston Road meeting. The file in question must be on its way back to the registry soon. I'll see to it that it is intercepted and removed from the system. I'll also keep a close eye on the individual who signed it out. I appreciate that this information needs to be smothered… whatever the cost."

There was a long pause on the other end of the line, and Mace began to feel a little nervous.

"This leaves things a little messy Oliver. I wanted there to be no loose ends."

"Everything will be squared away," Mace was quick with the assurance. "Harry Pearce will have no way of finding out who the sniper was. All of his officers made it out of the affair with their lives intact."

"And the sniper?"

"Anonymity is guaranteed."

"I think someone needs to have a quiet word with Mr Pearce. Make sure that he understands the gravity of the situation."

Mace carefully chose his next words. "I don't think that that's the wisest thing to do. He's going to be angry when he realises how O'Dowd died. He left here thinking that O'Dowd was about to be taken into custody."

"Then it's up to you to explain the situation to him."

Mace opened his mouth to reply, but was left listening to the dial tone as the caller disconnected.

* * *

The blue lights of the emergency vehicles strobed against the side of the buildings and illuminated the features of the men who were standing around it. All were clothed in black; their chatter low and quick as they wound down after the operation. Some were smoking; quick fingers bringing the warming cigarettes to their mouths.

Ros scanned the group in front of her, searching for one particular face.

"Where the hell were you?" Ros pushed her way through the crowd of men and homed in on the black-uniformed marksman.

The man turned to face her; the smile on his face vanishing as he caught sight of her.

"Where the hell were you?" she repeated her question as she closed the distance. "We were out there and you did nothing. You sat there and waited for someone to take a shot."

"I might have hit you," the man offered by way of an explanation.

"They have us believe that you can hit peas off a fork at a hundred paces, so don't piss me about."

"You cared about O'Dowd?"

"Well I wasn't looking to see his brains splattered all over the walls of the room I was in," Ros snapped. "If you'd taken out the sniper then that wouldn't have happened." She looked around. "What did you do; give him an escort away from the place and pay for his plane ticket out of the country?"

"Send me the bill for your dry cleaning if it makes you feel any better!" the officer told her coldly, before looking her up and down. "From the looks of things you're going to have to wash that man right out of your hair!"

Ignoring the sniggers from the other officers he was with, Ros pushed past and headed away from the group. She had no idea where she was going; she just knew that she needed to be somewhere else. She walked out of the area illuminated by the strobing blue lights and into the darkness beyond.

* * *

Harry placed the report down on his desk. He was well aware that his superiors would rather that he didn't commit so many reports to hard copy, but there was something reassuring about the feel of paper between his fingers, a sense of permanence that information scrolling across a screen just seemed to lack. He raised his eyes and glanced across at Ros, who was sat across from him, one ankle crossed neatly over the other, a thinly disguised look of boredom on her features.

"And this is everything that happened?"

There was an unmistakable edge to Harry's voice.

"Everything that I remembered. I may have missed out a whinge or two from O'Dowd."

Harry frowned. "O'Dowd said nothing more?"

Ros arched an eyebrow. "You were expecting him to give me his life story?"

"I was expecting something a little more than what you've given me here." Harry pushed the file back towards Ros, the distain plain in his tone.

"That's all I remember," Ros told him bluntly. "People were trying to kill me, so I may have been giving less than my full attention to O'Dowd."

Harry studied her, looking for any sign that she was keeping something back.

"But as far as you are aware...this is everything?"

Ros nodded. "If you were hoping for some last minute eulogising, then I'm sorry to disappoint you. He wasn't in a sharing mood."

Harry couldn't put his finger on exactly why he didn't believe her. There was nothing tangible to hang the suspicion on, but it was there all the same, the feeling at the back of his mind that she was lying; keeping something back for herself. He let out a slow breath; she was an adult. She was more than capable of taking care of herself. If she wanted to play things this way, then it was up to her. He just had to trust that she understood the importance of knowing when to play the cards that you were holding and when to keep that information close to your chest.

He gestured towards the door. "As long as you're sure that's everything, you should get yourself home. It's been a long few days."

Ros nodded in acknowledgement, and pushed the chair away from the table before rising to her feet.

She made it to the door, before Harry spoke again.

"Be careful Ros," he warned her. "There are vultures out there; they'll take you out in a heartbeat if they think you pose a threat."

"Harry I told you..."

He raised a hand to silence her protest. "I know what you told me Ros; now just listen to what I've told you. Tread carefully ... very very carefully."

* * *

Harry turned up the collar of his coat, and made his way quickly along the rain-soaked pavement towards the arranged rendezvous. Oliver Mace had rung him, and demanded that they meet. Harry was convinced that Mace had arranged the meeting in public because he was afraid of what might happen to him if the two were to meet in private.

Harry frowned as the downpour seemed to grow heavier. Ahead he spotted the large black umbrella that Mace was sporting. Harry's frown became a scowl; trust Mace to bring an umbrella.

"I hope you're not going to stand there and expect me to condone what was little more than a state ordered execution," Harry remarked as he drew alongside Mace and leant upon the railings that lined the embankment.

Oliver Mace smiled thinly. "It was nothing of the sort."

"Then what would you call it?" Harry demanded to know as he watched the last of the tourist boats make their way along the Thames.

"I think it would help all of us if you were to look at this with a little sense of perspective... If O'Dowd had been allowed to go public with his outrageous claims, who knows where it would have ended?"

Harry let out a long breath. "People would have been called to account and the blame placed squarely on the shoulders of those who were responsible."

Mace smiled. "Come now Harry, you've been in the service long enough to know that that would never have happened! Our world is little more than a series of checks and balances. This was one little matter that needed to be kept quiet."

"Since when was the taking of a man's life a 'little matter'?"

"The information he had could have toppled the Government Harry; and whatever you may think of the individuals involved; now is not the time to throw the country into such a political upheaval."

"We were played," Harry replied angrily. "From the start we were set up. O'Dowd was dumped in our laps and we sat there waiting to be shot at!"

"Now we're getting to the real heart of it," Oliver smiled. "This isn't about O'Dowd; this is about your pride."

"And your pet sniper. Where is he now? Sunning himself on some tropical beach at the tax payers expense?"

"Careful Harry," Mace warned. "It is possible to push things too far."

"Really!"

"Really. There was a fatality in the crash that occurred in the underground car park on the Cantallo estate. The matter is not presently being investigated, but if forensic officers were to be instructed to examine the vehicle, and the body of the deceased... just who's gun do you imagine ballistics would identify as the one responsible for firing the fatal rounds?"

Harry met Mace's gaze.

"That request is only a phone call away Harry. If you want to keep your officer on the street and out of prison, I suggest that you comply with my request."

"Request!" Harry spat the word out.

"It is a request," Mace replied calmly. "Your officer is receiving the same courtesy that we are presently extending to the man you seem to wish to see swinging from a gibbet at the nearest crossroads. If you wish for one to be punished ... well, we can't be seen to play favourites now, can we?"

Harry muttered something beneath his breath, before pushing away from the railing.

"Going somewhere?"

Harry looked around in disgust. "There are days when I feel as though I'm getting lost in the muck and the grime of this business. Today is one of those days. I'm going; I'm going somewhere where I can at least try and forget about this ...this job that we do."

Mace tilted his head to one side. "You're sounding tired Harry. Surely you're not looking to head to the knackers yard just yet."

Harry smiled a humourless smile. "I'll see you there first Oliver."

He turned and walked away; leaving Mace staring after him.

* * *

Jo put one foot in front of the other, and concentrated fully on getting to the door without needing to lean against the wall for support. Every step was accompanied by a dull throb from her ribs. Her doctor had advised her to remain in the hospital for the night, but she was keen to be on her way. There was nothing like sleeping at home; and home was somewhere that she wanted to be more than anything.

It had been frustrating to follow the news reports on O'Dowd; knowing that most of what they were reporting was going to be inaccurate. She couldn't explain the pang of loss she felt upon hearing that O'Dowd was dead. The news channels were implying that there should be some sort of national rejoicing, but all Jo felt was a sense of loss. She knew that it would be pointless to try and explain things to Adam or Harry, and so she resolved to bury the feelings she had, and concentrate on getting fit enough to be back at work.

She finally reached the door and pulled it open. Across the hallway Zaf was leaning up against the wall, his coat draped over one arm. Upon seeing her, his eyes lit up and he pushed himself upright.

"I'm here to escort you home," he told her warmly.

"There's no need," she told him, trying to disguise her delight upon seeing someone there.

"I'm not much of a cook," he warned her. "But I can order the meanest takeaway this side of the river."

With a smile, she took the arm that was offered, and the pair of them made their way slowly towards the exit.

* * *

The images from the television screen flickered across Ruth's face. The main news headline immediately caught her attention and she reached out for the remote, ignoring the mew of protest from Fidget as she tipped him from her lap, and raised the volume to listen to the news report.

She shook her head slowly as she realised the spin that was being placed on the story. She wondered briefly just how far the suppression of the truth would extend; would anyone else ever realise what had really happened.

At her side the screen on her mobile lit up, and moments later the phone began to ring. She was tempted to ignore it as she realised that the number was withheld. Withheld numbers meant work and that was something that she wasn't certain that she still had the energy for.

Her hand hesitated for a moment, before reaching out and collecting the phone from the cushion next to her.

"What is it?" she asked gruffly. It was one thing to answer the phone; there was no rule that said she had to be polite.

"And a good evening to you too!"

"Harry!" Ruth sat up straight and heard the thud of paws on the carpet as Fidget was unceremoniously deposited onto the floor by her sudden movement.

"I was thinking…" the voice on the other end of the phone said hesitantly. "I don't know about you, but it's been a long and difficult day, and I could do with a drink."

Ruth glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed heavily. Tempted though she was by the offer, the hour was late and she wasn't sure that she was really in the mood for facing a crowd of strangers in a pub somewhere.

"I was thinking…" Harry broke the silence, "And I hope that you won't think it an imposition. I was thinking that …" his voice tailed off as though uncertain of continuing.

"Where are you?" Ruth took a deep breath and rubbed at her eyes with her free hand.

There was a long pause before the answer finally came.

"Outside."

Ruth glanced towards the windows. "But it's pouring down out there."

"Believe me; I'm well aware of that fact at this present moment in time."

Ruth deliberated for a second before rising to her feet and heading out of the room, Fidget hot on her heels.

Without bothering to switch on the light, she headed down the hallway, her bare feet cold on the tiled floor. Undoing the locks, she opened the front door and regarded Harry as he struggled to remain dry beneath the small porch; a bottle of whisky clutched in his right hand, his mobile phone still held in his left.

"I guess you'd better come in," she told him, stepping back and opening the door wider.

Fidget took one look at the new arrival and darted back towards the living room in search of warmth.

Harry passed the bottle to Ruth and silently stepped over the threshold.

* * *

The flames licked hungrily at the paper, the edges curling with the heat - blackening before finally falling away, lost in the heart of the fire.

The man stood away from the flames, dipping his hands into his jacket pocket and pulling out a slender blue memory stick. He regarded the small item for a moment before casting it into the centre of the fire, certain that the casing would melt and the contents of the device would be destroyed within seconds.

If another copy of O'Dowd's manuscript was ever unearthed, then he would go through the same process again. There were certain things that were above the cost of a single human life. Waterhouse publishing had been compensated and left in no doubt that publishing anything from O'Dowd would be inadvisable.

The security services acted in the best interests of the country; it just wasn't always in the best interests of the country to know exactly what the security services were up to. As long as the status quo was maintained, it mattered little how it was achieved; the ends would always - in his reading of the situation - justify the means.

Oliver Mace rubbed his hands together and warmed them by the heat of the fire that he had created.


End file.
